"Say, rather, Miss Morton, that those to whom many temptations fall should have many excuses made. Where the brain preponderates, excelling in creative faculty and rapid thought, there will the sensibilities be proportionately acute. The vivacity and vigorous life which produced the rapid flow of Sheridan's eloquence led him into the dissipation which made him end his days in a spunging-house. Men of cooler minds and natures must not presume to judge him. They had not his temptation; they cannot judge of his fault. Richelieu, in all probability, amused himself with his verses as he amused himself with his white kitten and its cork, as a _délassement_; had he piqued himself upon his poetry, as they say, he would have turned poetaster instead of politician. As for the other two, you must remember that Pope's deformity made him a subject of ridicule to the woman he was fool enough to worship, and Byron, poor fellow, was over-susceptible on all points, or he would scarcely have allowed the venomed arrows from the Scotch Reviewers to wound him, nor would he have cared for the desertion of a wife who was to him like ice to fire. When you are older, you will learn that it is very dangerous and unjust to say this thing is right, that wrong, that feeling wise, or this foolish; for all temperaments are different, and the same circumstances may produce very different effects. Your puppies will grow up with dissimilar characters; how much more so, then, must men?" Miss Fay was quiet for a minute, then she flashed her mischievous eyes on him. "Certainly; but then, by your own admission, you have no right to decide that your love for mathematics is wise, and my love for Snowdrop foolish; it may be quite _au contraire_. Perhaps, after all, I may have 'chosen the better part.'" "Fay, go in and dress for dinner," interrupted the General, trotting up; "your tongue would run on forever if nobody stopped it; you're no exception to your sex on that point. Is she?" Keane laughed. "Perhaps Miss Morton's frænum, like Sydie's, was cut too far in her infancy, and therefore she has been 'unbridled' ever since." "In all things!" cried little Fay. "Nobody has put the curb on me yet, and nobody ever shall." "Don't be too sure, Fay," cried Sydie. "Rarey does wonders with the wildest fillies. Somebody may bring you down on your knees yet." "You'll have to see to that, Sydie," laughed the General. "Come, get along, child, to your toilette. I never have my soup cold and my curry overdone. To wait for his dinner is a stretch of good nature, and patience that ought not to be expected of any man."