ll Street,
"I feel as if the end of the world had come."

"That is the time to laugh, my dear boy. When you see the world you have
educated scampering off through space, the retreat led by the greatest
rascal in the country, your humour, if you have any, is bound to
respond. Moreover, there is always something humorous in one's downfall,
and a certain relief. The worst is over."

"But, Cousin Alexander," said Robert Hamilton, "surely this is not
ultimate defeat for you? You will not give up the fight after the first
engagement--you!"

"Oh, no! not I!" cried Hamilton. "I shall fight on until I have made
Thomas Jefferson President of the United States. Should I not laugh? Was
any man ever in so ironical a situation before? I shall move heaven and
America to put Pinckney in the chair, and I shall fail; and to save the
United States from Burr I shall turn over the country I have made to my
bitterest enemy."

"That would not be my way of doing, sir," said Robert. "I'd fight the
rival chieftain to his death. Perhaps this Burr is not so real a
Catiline as you think him. Nobody has a good word for him, but I mean he
may not have the courage for so dangerous an act as usurpation."

"Courage is just the one estimable if misdirected quality possessed by
Burr, and, whetted by his desperate plight, no length would daunt him. A
year or two ago he hinted to me that I had thrown away my opportunities.
Pressed, he admitted that I was a fool not to have changed the
government when I could. When I reminded him that I could only have done
such a thing by turning traitor, he replied, 'Les grands ames se
soucient peu des petits moraux.' It was not worth while to reason with a
man who had neither little morals nor great ones, so I merely replied
that from the genius and situation of the country the thing was
impracticable; and he answered, 'That depends on the estimate we form of
the human passions, and of the means of influencing them.' Burr would
neither regard a scheme of usurpation as visionary,--he is sanguine and
visionary to a degree that will be his ruin,--nor be restrained by any
reluctance to occupy an infamous place in history."

They had reached his doorstep in the Broadway. The house was lighted.
Through the open windows of the drawing-room poured a musical torrent.
Angelica, although but sixteen, shook life and soul from the cold keys
of the piano, and was already ambitious to win fame as a composer.
To-night she was play