elf, and for the restoration of a royal
family, nobility, and priesthood who tamely abandoned their own rights,
is a burden too much even for the resources of this country."

"And was the war, then, on the part of Great Britain," rejoined the Abbe,
"a gratuitous exertion of generosity? Was there no fear of the
wide-wasting spirit of innovation which had gone abroad? Did not the
laity tremble for their property, the clergy for their religion, and
every loyal heart for the Constitution? Was it not thought necessary to
destroy the building which was on fire, ere the conflagration spread
around the vicinity?"

"Yet if upon trial," said the doctor, "the walls were found to resist our
utmost efforts, I see no great prudence in persevering in our labour amid
the smouldering ruins."

"What, Doctor," said the baronet, "must I call to your recollection your
own sermon on the late general fast? Did you not encourage us to hope
that the Lord of Hosts would go forth with our armies, and that our
enemies, who blasphemed him, should be put to shame?"

"It may please a kind father to chasten even his beloved children,"
answered the vicar.

"I think," said a gentleman near the foot of the table, "that the
Covenanters made some apology of the same kind for the failure of their
prophecies at the battle of Danbar, when their mutinous preachers
compelled the prudent Lesley to go down against the Philistines in
Gilgal."

The vicar fixed a scrutinizing and not a very complacent eye upon this
intruder. He was a young man, of mean stature and rather a reserved
appearance. Early and severe study had quenched in his features the
gaiety peculiar to his age, and impressed upon them a premature cast of
thoughtfulness. His eve had, however, retained its fire, and his gesture
its animation. Had he remained silent, he would have been long unnoticed;
but when he spoke, there was something in his manner which arrested
attention.

"Who is this young man?" said the vicar, in a low voice, to his
neighbour.

"A Scotchman called Maxwell, on a visit to Sir Henry," was the answer.

"I thought so, from his accent and his manner," said the vicar. It may be
here observed that the Northern English retain rather more of the ancient
hereditary aversion to their neighbors than their countrymen of the
South. The interference of other disputants, each of whom urged his
opinion with all the vehemence of wine and politics, rendered the summons
to the drawing-r