"'The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied--
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
Has robb'd the neighboring fields of half their growth;
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies:
While thus the land adorn'd for pleasure--all
In barren splendor feebly waits the fall.'"

As Mr. Jefferson finished quoting the lines, the sound of voices and
exclamations of astonishment came to the gentlemen from the other side
of the curtain. Looking into the salon they saw Monsieur de St. Aulaire
surrounded by a little group of ladies and gentlemen. He was speaking
quite audibly, so that his words reached the astonished group in the
embrasure of the window.

"'Tis the latest from the Club des Enrages--the King abdicates
to-morrow!" He passed on amid a chorus of dismayed ejaculations.

"What is this?" said Mr. Jefferson, in alarm. "'Tis impossible that it
should be true. Yonder I see Montmorin. I will ask him the meaning of
this," and he passed hurriedly into the salon, leaving Mr. Morris and
Calvert alone.

"'Tis some infernal deviltry of St. Aulaire's, I'll be bound," said Mr.
Morris. "I think I will go, too, Ned," he said, after a minute's
silence, "and see if I can't find Madame de Flahaut. She will know what
this wild report amounts to. Oh, you need not stand there smiling at me
with those serious eyes of yours, my young Sir Galahad! She's a very
pretty and a very interesting woman, if a good deal of the intrigante,
and as for me, I know excellently well how to take care of myself. I
wonder if you do!" and with that he passed out, laughing and drawing the
velvet curtains of the window together behind him.

Mr. Calvert, thus left alone, and being shut off from the great gallery
by the drapery of the window, folded his arms, and, leaning against the
open casement, gazed out at the beautiful scene before him. And as he
looked up in the heavens at the moon shining with such effulgence on
this scene of splendor, the thought came to him that she was shining on
other and far different scenes, too--on the tides of the ocean and on
the cold snows of the mountain-peaks; on squalor and wretchedness and
agitation in the great city so near; and especially did he