great, gay capital, his own
master,--at liberty to plunge into whatever sea of dissipation, to float
idly down whatever tide of pleasure lured him. But he wronged himself
when he warned his father, some months previous, that if he were
debarred from studying a profession, he might seek excitement, or
oblivion, in impure channels, and waste his exuberant energies in
degrading pastimes. He spoke on the spur of some vague, restless impulse
within him, that clamored for an outlet; but he misjudged himself in
imagining that he could be compelled to drown the memory of his
disappointment in the wine-cup, the vortex of the gaming-table, or the
more fearful maelstrom of siren allurements. To a young heart which has
not been sullied by familiar contact with evil, there is no aegis so
invulnerable to the assaults of those deadly enemies, who make their
attacks in the fascinating garb of licentious liberty, as a strong,
pure, life-absorbing attachment. He who wears the shield of a first,
stainless affection, carries Ithuriel's spear in his hand, and, at a
single touch, the sensual enchanter in his path, however resplendent its
disguise, drops the fair-featured mask and shining mantle, and stands
revealed in native hideousness. The image of Madeleine, ever present to
Maurice, drew around him a protecting circle which nothing vile could
enter, and, wherever his own eyes turned, it seemed to him that her
heavenly eyes followed. Could he profane their holy gaze by fixing his
upon scenes of captivating degradation and rose-crowned vice?

Day after day, as his strength returned, it was but natural that he
should grow more and more weary of monotonous indolence, and more and
more impatient to escape from its depressing, deadening thraldom. The
happy change, which a settled occupation had effected in Gaston de Bois,
seemed to add to the discontent of his friend. Sometimes he was on the
point of starting for Brittany, and making a fresh appeal to his father;
then he was withheld by the dread that an angry discussion would be the
only sequence. He knew that his father's pride, sustained by that of his
grandmother, was unconquerable, and that the sentence, which condemned
him to a dreary, inert, and profitless existence, would only be
pronounced upon him anew.

Since his illness he had entirely abandoned his vain search for
Madeleine. He always felt as though he had seen her, albeit, when he
attempted to reflect upon the likelihood that she