of a passionate nature
should ever be concentrated on them, they would be absorbed into the
very depths of his nature, and then his blood would turn to flame and
burn his life out of him, until his cheeks grew as white as the ashes
that cover a burning coal.

I wish I had not said either sex in my certificate. An academy for young
gentlemen, now; that sounds cool and unimaginative. A boys' school, that
would be a very good place for him;--some of them are pretty rough, but
there is nerve enough in that old Wentworth strain of blood; he can give
any country fellow, of the common stock, twenty pounds, and hit him out
of time in ten minutes. But to send such a young fellow as that out a
girl's-nesting! to give this falcon a free pass into all the dove-cotes!
I was a fool,--that's all.

I brooded over the mischief which might come out of these two words
until it seemed to me that they were charged with destiny. I could
hardly sleep for thinking what a train I might have been laying, which
might take a spark any day, and blow up nobody knows whose peace or
prospects. What I dreaded most was one of those miserable matrimonial
misalliances where a young fellow who does not know himself as yet
flings his magnificent future into the checked apron-lap of some
fresh-faced, half-bred country-girl, no more fit to be mated with him
than her father's horse to go in double harness with Flora Temple. To
think of the eagle's wings, being clipped so that he shall never
lift himself over the farm-yard fence! Such things happen, and always
must,--because, as one of us said awhile ago, a man always loves,
a woman, and a woman a man, unless some good reason exists to the
contrary. You think yourself a very fastidious young man, my friend; but
there are probably at least five-thousand young women in these United
States, any one of whom you would certainly marry, if you were thrown
much into her company, and nobody more attractive were near, and she had
no objection. And you, my dear young lady, justly pride yourself on your
discerning delicacy; but if I should say that there are twenty thousand
young men, any one of whom, if he offered his hand and heart under
favorable circumstances, you would

"First endure, then pity, then embrace,"

I should be much more imprudent than I mean to be, and you would, no
doubt, throw down a story in which I hope to interest you.

I had settled it in my mind that this young fellow had a career m