criminal as you esteem him. If a man cherish the idea that his actions
are not evil, he will retain at his heart all its better and gentler
sensations as much as if he had never sinned. The savage murders his
enemy, and when he returns home is not the less devoted to his friend
or the less anxious for his children. To harden and embrute the kindly
dispositions, we must not only indulge in guilt but feel that we are
guilty. Oh! many that the world load with their opprobrium are capable
of acts--nay, have committed acts--which in others the world would
reverence and adore. Would you know whether a man's heart be shut to
the power of love,--ask what he is, not to his foes, but to his friends!
Crime, too," continued Clifford, speaking fast and vehemently, while his
eyes flashed and the dark blood rushed to his cheek,--"crime,--what is
crime? Men embody their worst prejudices, their most evil passions, in a
heterogeneous and contradictory code; and whatever breaks this code they
term a crime. When they make no distinction in the penalty--that is
to say, in the estimation--awarded both to murder and to a petty theft
imposed on the weak will by famine, we ask nothing else to convince us
that they are ignorant of the very nature of guilt, and that they make
up in ferocity for the want of wisdom."

Lucy looked in alarm at the animated and fiery countenance of the
speaker. Clifford recovered himself after a moment's pause, and rose
from his seat, with the gay and frank laugh which made one of his
peculiar characteristics. "There is a singularity in politics, Miss
Brandon," said he, "which I dare say you have often observed,--namely,
that those who are least important are always most noisy, and that the
chief people who lose their temper are those who have nothing to gain in
return."

As Clifford spoke, the doors were thrown open, and some visitors to
Miss Brandon were announced. The good squire was still immersed in
the vicissitudes of his game; and the sole task of receiving and
entertaining "the company," as the chambermaids have it, fell, as usual,
upon Lucy. Fortunately for her, Clifford was one of those rare persons
who possess eminently the talents of society. There was much in his
gay and gallant temperament, accompanied as it was with sentiment and
ardour, that resembled our beau-ideal of those chevaliers, ordinarily
peculiar to the Continent,--heroes equally in the drawing-room and
the field. Observant, courteous, witty