self admirably; she felt that Burr must recognize
sterling manhood and aristocratic breeding. This he did, and more, for
at a glance he read the book and volume of her husband's character,
interpreting more accurately than it was in her nature to do. The
woman's partial eye discovered the sound qualities it wished to see,
while the calculating insight of the man of the world detected the
flaws he was too willing to find.

The solemnities of introduction being safely over, Blennerhassett
monopolized the guest, and led the way to his study, eager to set
forth a feast of information. Among his books he could talk like a
book; out of the library he lost energy. There was one source from
which he took a current of mental force more vitalizing than any
stream of ideas from books, and that source was the superior intellect
of his wife. Hardly could he make up his mind on any practical matter,
unassisted by her thinking and advice. Doubly dependent, he was not
the man to cope with the daring, self-reliant, versatile Aaron Burr.
But once in his stronghold, bulwarked by standard editions, and, as it
were, in the arsenal of established science, the philosopher rose to
his best. He fairly glowed with learning's soft fire, while exhibiting
his telescope, microscope, electrical machine, _et cetera_, and
stating to the last shilling what each piece of apparatus cost and how
it was to be used. Burr, himself a victim of mild bibliomania, took
most interest in the loaded shelves, along which his eyes travelled
with rapid discrimination.

"I see familiars here. Your Voltaire is a match for mine.
Ah!--Rousseau, Bentley, Gibbon, Hume--I fancy myself in my study on
Richmond Hill. You must be a free-thinker. Where is the Holy Bible? I
hope you are not past that?"

"The Sacred Scripture? I have two copies. I believe they are both in
Margaret's room--I mean Mrs. Blennerhassett's. She reads the Bible
frequently, especially the poetical parts. The Hebrew mind is
poetical. I have searched the Scripture in vain for scientific data.
There is little or no exact science in the work. Nothing on physic,
though they claim that St. Luke was a doctor. Let me show you a
remarkable volume--centuries old--this folio copy of Hippocrates,
translated from the original Greek into Arabic and from Arabic into
Latin. My favorite reading, however, is purely literary--the book of
books--the incomparable Homer. Alexander the Great kept his Homer in
a golden box; I