ulated Maurice, who, often as he had witnessed the
promptitude with which the young American moved, could not yet
familiarize himself with his national rapidity of action and decision.

"You call it _soon_? Why, if I had said day after to-morrow it might
have been termed _soon_; but it seems to me a week is time enough to
prepare for a journey around the world. Come, you have half an hour
before the post closes,--dash off your letter and let it go at once."

As he spoke, he cleared his writing-table of the books and papers by
which it was encumbered, and placed a chair for Maurice. The latter, who
was always carried onward by the rushing current of his friend's strong
will, wrote, on the spur of the moment, a letter more calculated to
impress his father than any deliberately studied epistle. The restless
and gloomy state of mind under which Maurice labored, revealed itself in
this impulsive effusion with a force which might not have found its way
into a calmer communication.

The frequent applications for money which Maurice had been compelled to
make, that he might meet the demands of the old Jew, were not without
their influence in preparing Count Tristan to look favorably upon his
son's solicitation. The count imagined that the sums so constantly
demanded were squandered in the manner habitual to gay young men in
Paris. He had experienced much difficulty in complying with his son's
last request, and became painfully aware that it would not much longer
be in his power to supply him at the same extravagant rate. As a natural
consequence, he hailed the proposition to travel, which might break off
any unfortunate connections, or _liaisons_, he might have formed in
Paris, and without their aid, divert his troubled mind. Then, the
present would be a favorable opportunity for Maurice to visit his estate
in Maryland, and to learn something further of that railway company
which seemed of late to have suspended its operations.

Maurice was not less astounded than overjoyed upon receiving his
father's prompt and unconditional consent to his proposed trip. He at
once carried the letter to Bertha. She was too generous to oppose a step
which promised to be advantageous to her cousin, yet she could not
contemplate their inevitable separation without sincere sorrow.

"I wish I were going with you!" she sighed. "It seems to me everybody is
going to America. Have you not heard that the Marquis de Fleury has just
received the appoi