elf--not safe
from the extravagance and pillage of its own members? The public eye,
ever watchful and timid, waits scarcely for the show of danger to take
alarm and withdraw its favour. Michael shrunk from the bare conception
of an act of violence. It was more agreeable, in an hour of
self-collectedness, to devise a remedy, which, if it did not cure the
disease, helped at least to cicatrize the immediate wounds. He looked
from Brammel to Brammel's father for indemnification. And the old man
was in truth a rare temptation. Fond, pitiable father of a false and
bloodless child! doting, when others would have hated, loving his
prodigal with a more anxious fondness as his ingratitude grew
baser--as the claims upon a parent's heart dwindled more and more
away. The grey-haired man was a girl in tenderness and sensibility. He
remembered the mother of the wayward child, and the pains she had
taken to misuse and spoil her only boy; his own conduct returned to
him in the shape of heavy reproaches, and he could not forget, or call
to mind without remorse, the smiles of encouragement he had given, the
flattering approbation he had bestowed when true love, justice, duty,
mercy, all called loudly for rebuke, restraint, wholesome correction,
solemn chastisement. Could he be conscious of all this, and not excuse
the unsteady youth--accuse himself? It was he who deserved
punishment--not the sufferer with his calamities _imposed_ upon him by
his erring sire. He was ready to receive his punishment. Oh, would
that at any cost--at any expense of bodily and mental suffering, he
could secure his child from further sorrow and from deeper
degradation! To such a heart and mind, Michael might well carry his
complaints with some expectation of sympathy and reimbursement.
Aggrieved as he was, he did not fail to paint his disappointment and
sense of injury in the strongest colours; but blacker than all--and he
was capable of such a task, he pictured the gross deception of which
he had so cruelly been made the subject.

"I could," he said to the poor father, in whose aged eyes, turned to
the earth, tears of shame were gushing, "I could have forgiven any
thing but that. You deceived me meanly and deliberately. The character
you gave with him was false. You knew it to be so, and you were well
aware that nothing but mischief and ruin could result from a connexion
with him."

"Indeed, Mr Allcraft," replied the unhappy man, "I had great hopes of
his ref