rankly owning that it was a kind of
do-nothing existence that she enjoyed greatly. Her extraordinary beauty
was already a town talk; and the passages of the hotel were crowded as
she went down to her carriage, and to her box at the opera were directed
almost every glass in the house. This, however, is a homage not always
respectful; and in the daring looks of the men, and the less equivocal
glances of the women, Beecher read the judgment that had been pronounced
upon her. Her manner, too, in public had a certain fearless gayety about
it that was sure to be severely commented on, while the splendor of her
dress was certain to be not more mercifully interpreted.

To have the charge of a casket of jewels through the thieves' quarter
of London was the constant similitude that rose to Beecher's mind as he
descended the stairs at her side. To be obliged to display her to the
wondering gaze of some hundred idlers, the dissipated and debauched
loungers of a watering-place, men of bad lives and worse tongues; to
mark the staring insolence of some, and the quizzical impertinence
of others; to see how narrowly each day they escaped some more overt
outrage from that officious politeness that is tendered to those in
equivocal positions, were tortures that half maddened him. Nor could he
warn her of the peril they stood in, or dare to remonstrate about many
little girlish ways which savored of levity. The scene of the theatre
in Brussels was never off his mind, and the same one idea continually
haunted him, that poor Hamilton's fate might be his own.
The characterless men of the world are always cowards as to
responsibility,--they feel that there is a flaw in their natures that
must smash them if pressed upon; and so was it here. Beecher's life was
actual misery, and each morning he awoke the day seemed full of menace
and misfortune to him. In his heart, he knew that if an emergency arose
he should be found wanting; he 'd either not think of the right thing,
or have pluck for it if he even thought it; and then, whatever trouble
or mishap he came through, there still remained worse behind,--the
settlement with Grog himself at the end.

Like most persons who seek the small consolation of falling back on
their own foresight, he called to mind how often he had said to himself
that nothing but ill could come of journeying with Grog Davis,--he knew
it, he was sure of it. A fellow to conspire with about a "plant"--a
man to concert with on