lity of good. Probably, at
heart, he believed himself incapable of a bad action, but he
would take no oath to such a conviction, since by his theory
every man must yield under certain circumstances, attacking
powerfully his personal interest, while threatening slight danger
of failure or detection. This style of thought, set off by a fair
share of witty expression and ever-ready impertinence, gave Felix
a kind of ascendancy in his circle of intimates--but naturally
it gained him no friends. Common reputation grows out of words
rather than actions, and Felix suffered the just penalty of his
sceptical fancies. They cost him more than they were worth, as he
had just learned by sad experience.

He had chanced to make the acquaintance of a rich manufacturer,
Montmorot by name, whose daughter Ernestine was pleased with
the devotion of a charming young fellow, who mingled the rather
reckless grace of French cleverness with a reserved style and
refined pride gained from the English blood of the Maldens.
For his part, Felix really loved the girl, and had let his
impatience, that very day, carry him into a step that failed to
move the elder Montmorot's inflexibility. He refused absolutely
to give his daughter to a man without fortune or prospects. Felix
was crushed, his hopes all shattered at a blow, by this answer,
though he had a thousand reasons to expect it. And at what a
moment! A half-unfolded red ticket, stuffed with disgusting
threats, peeped out from between the wall and his sofa. The
officers of justice had paid him a little visit. He got into a
passion with himself.

"Pshaw," he cried, "confound all scruples! If I had been less in
love I should be Ernestine's husband now. With a pretty wife, one
I am so fond of, too, I should have fortune, position, and the
luxury indispensable to my life--now, I don't know where to lay
my head to-morrow. To-morrow, at ten o'clock, the sheriff will
seize everything--everything, from that Troyou sketch to that
china monster, nodding his frightful sneering head at me. They
will carry off this casket that was my father's--this locket,
with the hair of--of--what the deuce was her name? Poor girl! how
she loved me! And now all that is left of her vanishes--even her
name!

"What, nothing? no hope? Not even one of those silly impulses
that used to drive me out into the streets when everybody else
was abed, with the firm conviction that at some crossing, in some
gutter, some unknown dei