ry soul.
The folding-doors, on golden hinges turning,--figuratively, at least, if
not literally, like those of Milton's heaven,--grated as horrible
discords on my secret ear as the gates of Milton's other place. It was
my gold that helped to make those hinges. And this I endured merely for
the sake of enjoying the society, not of my dear newly-found cousins,
but of two phantoms, intangible, unsatisfactory, unreal that hovered
over their heads,--the phantom of wealth and the still more empty
phantom of social position. But all this, understand, was _before_ I
rode in Madam Waldoborough's carriage.

"Well, I saw London in company with my aristocratic relatives, and paid
a good deal more for the show, and really profited less by it, than if I
had gone about the business in my own deliberate and humble way.
Everything was, of course, done in the most lordly and costly manner
known. Instead of walking to this place or that, or taking an omnibus or
a cab, we rolled magnificently in our carriage. I suppose the happy
bridegroom would willingly have defrayed all these expenses, if I had
wished him to do so; but pride prompted me to pay my share. So it
happened that, during nine days in London, I spent as much as would have
lasted me as many weeks, if I had been as wise as I was vain,--that is,
if I had ridden in Madam Waldoborough's carriage _before_ I went to
England.

"When I saw how things were going, bankruptcy staring me in the face,
ruin yawning at my feet, I was suddenly seized with an irresistible
desire to go on to Paris, I had a French fever of the most violent
character. I declared myself sick of the soot and smoke uproar of the
great Babel,--I even spoke slightingly of Cox's Hotel, as if I had been
used to better things,--and I called for my bill. Heavens and earth, how
I trembled! Did ever a condemned wretch feel as faint at the sight of
the priest coming to bid him prepare for the gallows, as I did at the
sight of one of those sublime functionaries bringing me my doom on a
silver salver? Every pore opened; a clammy perspiration broke out all
over me; I reached forth a shaking hand, and thanked his highness with a
ghastly smile.

"A few figures told my fate. The convict who hears his death-sentence
may still hope for a reprieve; but figures are inexorable, figures
cannot lie. My bill at Cox's was in pounds, shillings, and pence,
amounting to just eleven dollars a day. Eleven times nine are
ninety-nine. It was so