a very
leopard, who will not part with his spots, since the sun himself
shall lose _his_ some day, purged in his own fires."

"I repeat, sir, your ward is in danger," said the seigneur doggedly.

"Not at all. Is the diamond in danger when it is put into the
crucible; is the gold deteriorated when it is being deterged from
dross?" was responded.

"Infatuated man, would you open the door to the seducer?" asked
the seigneur, growing angry with the contumelious lawyer.

"Seducer!" said the advocate, affecting to be shocked: "that is a
huge stone to throw at your own son: and remember; is not every
man's frame a glass house, whereat the soul that inhabits it should
invite no stone throwing from the little red catapult of a neighbour's
tongue? Beware, beware; have mercy, Monsieur Montigny. 'All flesh
is grass,' the Prophet proclaims; but I assert, 'All flesh is
glass.'"

"A woman's reputation is as brittle," was the seigneur's ready
repartee; "therefore warn off my son from Stillyside."

"But should he not regard me, sir, what then?"

"Brandish the law over him, your chosen weapon," answered the
seigneur.

The lawyer suddenly looked grave, and, affecting to be offended,
demanded sternly: "Monsieur Montigny, am I a mere mechanic to do
your bidding? Brandish the law indeed! Is, then, the law but an
ordinary cudgel, to thwack the shoulders with or beat the brains
out? The law, sir, is a sacred weapon, not to be lightly taken up,
neither to be profanely applied to paltry uses, any more than we
would take the tempered razor to pick a bone, or pare our cheese
with. Brandish the law! The man that can talk of brandishing the
law would brandish a piece of the true cross, sir, if he had it;
he would drink, sir, from his mother's skull, and with his father's
thigh-bones play at shinty. What is the law? What less is it than
the will and force of all employed for one; the savage sense of
justice, disciplined and drilled till it can move in regular array,
invincibly, to conquer wrong; surely too vast an engine to be
employed on trifles. Who wants a wheel to break a butterfly upon;
or, to crush a worm who calls for a pavior's rammer? Monsieur
Montigny, listen. Mercy is Heaven's first attribute, and the
executioner is the State's meanest, as well as last, servant; shall
I, then, stoop to this, who may aspire to that? Shall I wield a
whip of legal scorpions before your son, should he seek to re-enter
Stillyside? Would you have me