nnes fortunes_."

"Those make the paradise of the idle," replied Randal, "but the purgatory
of the busy. I confess frankly to you, my dear Count, that I have as
little of the leisure which becomes the aspirer to _bonnes fortunes_ as I
have the personal graces which obtain them without an effort;" and he
inclined his head as in compliment.

"So," thought the Count, "woman is not his weak side. What is?"

"_Morbleu!_ my dear Mr. Leslie--had I thought as you do some years since, I
had saved myself from many a trouble. After all, Ambition is the best
mistress to woo; for with her there is always the hope, and never the
possession."

"Ambition, Count," replied Randal, still guarding himself in dry
sententiousness, "is the luxury of the rich, and the necessity of the
poor."

"Aha," thought the Count, "it comes, as I anticipated from the first--comes
to the bribe." He passed the wine to Randal, filling his own glass, and
draining it carelessly: "_Sur mon ame, mon cher_," said the Count, "luxury
is ever pleasanter than necessity; and I am resolved at least to give
ambition a trial--_je vais me refugier dans le sein du bonheur
domestique_--a married life and a settled home. _Peste!_ If it were not for
ambition, one would die of ennui. Apropos, my dear sir, I have to thank
you for promising my sister your aid in finding a near and dear kinsman of
mine, who has taken refuge in your country, and hides himself even from
me."

"I should be most happy to assist in your search. As yet, however, I have
only to regret that all my good wishes are fruitless. I should have
thought, however, that a man of such rank had been easily found, even
through the medium of your own ambassador."

"Our own ambassador is no very warm friend of mine; and the rank would be
no clue, for it is clear that my kinsman has never assumed it since he
quitted his country."

"He quitted it, I understand, not exactly from choice," said Randal,
smiling. "Pardon my freedom and curiosity, but will you explain to me a
little more than I learn from English rumor (which never accurately
reports upon foreign matters still more notorious), how a person who had
so much to lose, and so little to win, by revolution, could put himself
into the same crazy boat with a crew of hare-brained adventurers and
visionary professors?

"Professors!" repeated the Count; "I think you have hit on the very answer
to your question; not but what men of high birth were as mad as the