end to the cafes and theatres, mingling in the throng of those whose
life is a round of easy dissipation. It is true that, to conform by
dress and demeanor with these, Frank was obliged to spend the golden
coins of Nelly's purse; louis after louis went in some one extravagance
or another, sacrifices that cost him many a pang, but which, from pride,
he bore up against with seeming indifference. Walstein presented him
everywhere as the nephew of the old field-marshal Von Auersberg; and as
nothing was more common than to see a young cadet dispensing the
most lavish sums, with equipages, liveries, and servants, none seemed
surprised that the youth should indulge in these habits and tastes of
extravagance. His very enjoyment seemed like an earnest of being long
habituated to these modes of life, for whether he played or drank, or in
whatever excesses he mingled, there was ever the same joyous spirit; and
Frank Dalton had all the outward signs of a youth rich in every accident
of fortune. At first, thoughts of his humble home and of those by whose
sacrifices he was enabled to indulge in such costly pleasures would
cross his mind, and, what between shame and sorrow, he felt degraded and
debased before himself; but, by degrees, the levity of action induced,
as it ever will do, the levity of thinking; and he suffered himself to
believe that "he was no worse than others." A more fatal philosophy than
this, youth never adopted, and he who seeks a low standard rarely stops
till he falls beneath even that. Frank's pride of family made him vain,
and his vanity made him credulous; he therefore implicitly believed
all that his new companions told him, the familiar "thee and thou" of
camaraderie giving an air of friendship to all the flatteries.

"Were I a nephew of a field-marshal like thee, I'd not serve in an
infantry corps. I 'd be in the Lichtenstein Hussars or the Lancers of
the Kaiser," said one.

"So he will," cried another. "Dalton only joined the Franz Carl to get
his promotion quickly. Once at Vienna, he will be an officer, and ready
to exchange his regiment."

"Old Auersberg can make thee what he will, lad," said a third. "He might
have been Minister of War himself, if he had liked it. The Emperor Franz
loved him as a brother."

"And he is rich, too, no one knows how rich," broke in a fourth. "He
commanded for many years on the Turkish frontier, in those good days
when our Grenzers used to make forays upon the villages, a