retain that avitam
fidem, or traditional loyalty, which (to use his own words) "is born
both in Rabys and Dences, as surely as a high-bred setter comes into the
world with a nose for game."

Mrs. Little has rewarded Dr. Amboyne's patience and constancy. They have
no children of their own, so they claim all the young Littles and Rabys,
present and to come; and the doctor has bound both the young women by a
solemn vow to teach them, at an early age, the art of putting themselves
into his place, her place, their place. He has convinced these young
mothers that the "great transmigratory art," although it comes of itself
only to a few superior minds, can be taught to vast numbers; and he
declares that, were it to be taught as generally as reading and writing,
that teaching alone would quadruple the intelligence of mankind, and go
far to double its virtue.

But time flies, and space contracts: the words and the deeds of Amboyne,
are they not written in the Amboyniana?

One foggy night, the house of a non-Union fender-grinder was blown
up with gunpowder, and not the workman only--the mildest and most
inoffensive man I ever talked with--but certain harmless women and
innocent children, who had done nothing to offend the Union, were all
but destroyed. The same barbarous act had been committed more than
once before, and with more bloody results, but had led to no large
consequences--carebat quai vate sacro; but this time there happened to
be a vates in the place, to wit, an honest, intrepid journalist, with
a mind in advance of his age. He came, he looked, he spoke to the poor
shaken creatures--one of them shaken for life, and doomed now to start
from sleep at every little sound till she sleeps forever--and the
blood in his heart boiled. The felony was publicly reprobated, and with
horror, by the Union, which had, nevertheless, hired the assassins; but
this well-worn lie did not impose on the vates, or chronicler ahead
of his time. He went round to all the manufacturers, and asked them to
speak out. They durst not, for their lives; but closed all doors, and
then, with bated breath, and all the mien of slaves well trodden
down, hinted where information might be had. Thereupon the vates
aforesaid--Holdfast yclept--went from scent to scent, till he dropped
on a discontented grinder, with fish-like eyes, who had been in "many
a night job." This man agreed to split, on two conditions; he was to
receive a sum of money, and to be s