suspect, will ultimately become as gallant and honest
a population as that now springing up in South Australia, from which
convicts are excluded,--and happily excluded,--for the distinction
will sharpen emulation. As to the rest, and in direct answer to your
question, I fancy even the emancipist part of our population every whit
as respectable as the mongrel robbers under Romulus."

Vivian.--"But were they not soldiers,--I mean the first Romans?"

Pisistratus.--"My dear cousin, we are in advance of those grim outcasts
if we can get lands, houses, and wives (though the last is difficult,
and it is well that we have no white Sabines in the neighborhood)
without that same soldiering which was the necessity of their
existence."

Vivian (after a pause).--"I have written to my father, and to yours
more fully,--stating in the one letter my wish, in the other trying to
explain the feelings from which it springs."

Pisistratus.--"Are the letters gone?"

Vivian.--"Yes."

Pisistratus.--"And you would not show them to me!"

Vivian.--"Do not speak so reproachfully. I promised your father to pour
out my whole heart to him, whenever it was troubled and at strife. I
promise you now that I will go by his advice."

Pisistratus (disconsolately).--"What is there in this military life for
which you yearn that can yield you more food for healthful excitement
and stirring adventure than your present pursuits afford?"

Vivian.--"Distinction! You do not see the difference between us. You
have but a fortune to make,--I have a name to redeem; you look calmly on
to the future,--I have a dark blot to erase from the past."

Pisistratus (soothingly).--"It is erased. Five years of no weak
bewailings, but of manly reform, steadfast industry, conduct so
blameless that even Guy (whom I look upon as the incarnation of blunt
English honesty) half doubts whether you are 'cute enough for 'a
station;' a character already so high that I long for the hour when you
will again take your father's spotless name, and give me the pride
to own our kinship to the world,--all this surely redeems the errors
arising from an uneducated childhood and a wandering youth."

Vivian (leaning over his horse, and putting his hand on my
shoulder).--"My dear friend, what do I owe you!" Then recovering his
emotion, and pushing on at a quicker pace, while he continues to speak,
"But can you not see that, just in proportion as my comprehension of
right would become clear