ts customs or its laws; openly
I war against it, and patiently will I meet its revenge. This may be
crime; but it looks light in my eyes when I gaze around, and survey on
all sides the masked traitors who acknowledge large debts to society,
who profess to obey its laws, adore its institutions, and, above
all--oh, how righteously!--attack all those who attack it, and who
yet lie and cheat and defraud and peculate,--publicly reaping all the
comforts, privately filching all the profits. Repent!--of what? I come
into the world friendless and poor; I find a body of laws hostile to
the friendless and the poor! To those laws hostile to me, then, I
acknowledge hostility in my turn. Between us are the conditions of
war. Let them expose a weakness,--I insist on my right to seize
the advantage; let them defeat me, and I allow their right to
destroy."--[The author need not, he hopes, observe that these sentiments
are Mr. Paul Clifford's, not his.]

"Passion," said Augustus, coolly, "is the usual enemy of reason; in your
case it is the friend."

The pair had now gained the summit of a hill which commanded a view of
the city below. Here Augustus, who was a little short-winded, paused
to recover breath. As soon as he had done so, he pointed with his
forefinger to the scene beneath, and said enthusiastically, "What a
subject for contemplation!"

Clifford was about to reply, when suddenly the sound of laughter and
voices was heard behind. "Let us fly!" cried Augustus; "on this day of
spleen man delights me not--or woman either."

"Stay!" said Clifford, in a trembling accent; for among those voices he
recognized one which had already acquired over him an irresistible and
bewitching power. Augustus sighed, and reluctantly remained motionless.
Presently a winding in the road brought into view a party of pleasure,
some on foot, some on horseback, others in the little vehicles which
even at that day haunted watering-places, and called themselves "Flies"
or "Swallows."

But among the gay procession Clifford had only eyes for one! Walking
with that elastic step which so rarely survives the first epoch of
youth, by the side of the heavy chair in which her father was drawn, the
fair beauty of Lucy Brandon threw--at least in the eyes of her lover--a
magic and a lustre over the whole group. He stood for a moment, stilling
the heart that leaped at her bright looks and the gladness of her
innocent laugh; and then recovering himself, he walked