efully, as if he were
sure that Hope Wayne understood that he was speaking in parables.

"Why?" she asked, as she rose, still looking at the picture.

"Because goddesses never marry."

He looked into her eyes with so much meaning, and the "do they?" which he
did not utter, was so perfectly expressed by his tone, that Hope Wayne,
as she moved slowly toward the door, looking at the pictures on the wall
as she passed, said, with her eyes upon the pictures, and not upon the
painter,

"Do you know the moral of that remark of yours?"

"Moral? Heaven forbid! I don't make moral remarks," replied Arthur.

"This time you have done it," she said, smiling; "you have made a remark
with a moral. I'm going, and I leave it with you as a legacy. The moral
is, If goddesses never marry, don't fall in love with a goddess."

She put out her hand to him as she spoke. He involuntarily took it, and
they shook hands warmly.

"Good-morning, Mr. Merlin," she said. "Remember the Round Table to-morrow
evening."

She was gone, and Arthur Merlin sank into the chair she had just left.

"Oh Heavens!" said he, "did she understand or not?"

CHAPTER LXV.

THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE.

General Belch's office was in the lower part of Nassau Street. At the
outer door there was a modest slip of a tin sign, "Arcularius Belch,
Attorney and Counselor." The room itself was dingy and forlorn. There was
no carpet on the floor; the windows were very dirty, and slats were
broken out of the blinds--the chairs did not match--there was a wooden
book-case, with a few fat law-books lounging upon the shelves; the table
was a chaos of pamphlets, printed forms, newspapers, and files of
letters, with a huge inkstand, inky pens, and a great wooden sand-box.
Upon each side of the chimney, the grate in which was piled with crushed
pieces of waste paper, and the bars of which were discolored with tobacco
juice, stood two large spittoons, the only unsoiled articles in the
office.

This was the place in which General Belch did business. It had the
atmosphere of Law. But, above all, it was the spot where, with one leg
swinging over the edge of the table and one hand waving in earnest
gesticulation, General Belch could say to every body who came, and
especially to his poorer fellow-citizens, "I ask no office; I am content
with my moderate practice. It is enough for me, in this glorious country,
to be a friend of the people."

As he said this--or only implied it