ds have
the power to awaken you, even now, to the dreadful consequences of what
you are about!"

"Shalley! Shalley!" cried she in amazement, "is this gentleman deranged,
or is it but the passing effect of your conviviality?" And with this she
swept out of the room, leaving me there alone, for I now perceived--what
seemed also to have escaped her--that the Minister had slipped quietly
away some time before, and was doubtless at that same moment in the
profoundest of slumbers.

I took my departure at once. There was no leave-taking to delay me, and
I left the house in a mood little according with the spirit of one who
had partaken of its hospitalities; I am constrained to admit I was the
very reverse of satisfied with myself. It was cowardly and mean of me
to wreak my anger on that old woman, and not upon him who was the
really great offender. He it was I should have arraigned; and with the
employment of a little artifice and some tact, how terrible I might
have made even my jesting levity! how sarcastic my sneers at fashionable
vice! Affecting utter ignorance about his life and habits, I could have
incidentally thrown out little episodes of all the men who have wrecked
their fortunes by abandoned habits. I would have pointed to this man who
made a brilliant opening in the House, and that who had acquired such
celebrity at the Bar; I would have shown the rising statesman tarnished,
the future chief justice disqualified; I would have said, "Let no man,
however modest his character or unfrequented his locality, imagine that
the world takes no note of his conduct; in every class he is judged
by his peers, and you and I, Doubleton, will as assuredly be arraigned
before the bar of society as the pickpocket will be charged before the
beak!"

I continued to revolve these and such like thoughts throughout the
entire night. The wine I had drunk fevered and excited me, and added to
that disturbed state which my own self-accusings provoked. Doubts, too,
flitted across my mind whether I ought not to have maintained a perfect
silence towards the others, and reserved all my eloquence for the poor
girl herself. I imagined myself taking her hand between both mine,
while, with averted head, she sobbed as if her heart would break, and,
saying, "Be comforted, poor stricken deer! be comforted; I know all. One
who is far from perfect himself, sorrows with and compassionates you; he
will be your friend, your adviser, your protector. I will