“If to have a conscience is to be so,” I answered; and took leave of her at the door of her residence—at the door of the house we had battled for—so happy, that she tried and could not say, “I thank you.” SECTION VIII. I returned to my office in a very good humor with all the world. Upon my table I found a note from Mr. Cornelius, requesting me to call upon him at an early hour in the evening. “A compromise—no compromises, Mr. Cornelius. If you will, begin again; but the widow shall keep all, to the last farthing.” And I dispatched a reply, saying I would be with him precisely at eight. John Cornelius lived in the upper part of the city, in a very large and costly house, which had been built by a parvenu of sudden wealth. It covered, with the surrounding grounds, two-thirds of a square, and had been purchased by Mr. Cornelius at the sale of the parvenu’s succession, rather on account of the land, than for any profitable use which he could make of the noble structure to which the land was appurtenant. The increasing commerce of the city had so surrounded it with warehouses and presses for cotton, as to render it impossible to find a tenant at even a three per cent. rent, so he moved into it himself, and, with one slave, lived there upon fifty cents a day. The spacious and unfurnished halls, dark, gloomy, venerable with dust, returned a hollow echo to my tread, as I entered at the appointed hour. I found the miser sitting at a small table, covered with papers, in the centre of a large room; the table and two chairs, that which he occupied and one reserved for myself, were all of furniture that it contained. He looked very pale, did not rise to receive me, but in silence waived his hand as an invitation to be seated. I obeyed, and waited for a declaration of the motives which had induced him to request my presence. But during the lapse of ten minutes he did not speak, so I drew his note from my pocket and pushing it toward him across the table, observed that my time was worth one dollar the minute. “Your client is my daughter,” said Mr. Cornelius. “Your daughter! Then you are mad, sure enough!”