ion
to this sort of creature.

But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it, the
romantic sentiment nourished by them. Edward aspired to become
Attorney-General of these realms, not a judge, you observe; for a judge
is to the imagination of youthful minds a stationary being, venerable,
but not active; whereas, your Attorney-General is always in the fray, and
fights commonly on the winning side,--a point that renders his position
attractive to sagacious youth. Algernon had other views. Civilization had
tried him, and found him wanting; so he condemned it. Moreover, sitting
now all day at a desk, he was civilization's drudge. No wonder, then,
that his dream was of prairies, and primeval forests, and Australian
wilds. He believed in his heart that he would be a man new made over
there, and always looked forward to savage life as to a bath that would
cleanse him, so that it did not much matter his being unclean for the
present.

The young men had a fair cousin by marriage, a Mrs. Margaret Lovell, a
widow. At seventeen she had gone with her husband to India, where Harry
Lovell encountered the sword of a Sikh Sirdar, and tried the last of his
much-vaunted swordsmanship, which, with his skill at the pistols, had
served him better in two antecedent duels, for the vindication of his
lovely and terrible young wife. He perished on the field, critically
admiring the stroke to which he owed his death. A week after Harry's
burial his widow was asked in marriage by his colonel. Captains, and a
giddy subaltern likewise, disputed claims to possess her. She, however,
decided to arrest further bloodshed by quitting the regiment. She always
said that she left India to save her complexion; "and people don't know
how very candid I am," she added, for the colonel above-mentioned was
wealthy,--a man expectant of a title, and a good match, and she was
laughed at when she thus assigned trivial reasons for momentous
resolutions. It is a luxury to be candid; and perfect candour can do more
for us than a dark disguise.

Mrs. Lovell's complexion was worth saving from the ravages of an Indian
climate, and the persecution of claimants to her hand. She was golden and
white, like an autumnal birch-tree--yellow hair, with warm-toned streaks
in it, shading a fabulously fair skin. Then, too, she was tall, of a
nervous build, supple and proud in motion, a brilliant horsewoman, and a
most distinguished sitter in an easy drawing-room ch