the scaffold?" "Face my own!" exclaimed Florian, shuddering at the suggestion. "God forbid! I shall take good care to avoid it." "Say not so," rejoined Bartholdy; "no man can avoid his doom; and it may be yours or mine to die upon the scaffold. _Avoid it_, indeed! I wish from my soul that you had never uttered those unlucky words. How often do the very evils we most carefully shun fall upon our devoted heads! My mind has been long made up to avoid nothing; and, soon as I become my own master, I will throw myself on the world, and grapple with it boldly. _Avoid_ your destiny, indeed! Beware of using those words again; for, trust me, Florian, they bode no good to you." The timid Florian felt his blood freeze as he listened; but, recollecting himself, he was about to express his perfect reliance upon the integrity of his life and principles, when he shuddered with new dismay as he recollected the judicial murder of Calas, and considered the complexities of human and circumstantial evidence. In deep and silent dejection, he walked homeward with his friend. He felt as if his existence had been blighted by some sudden and dreadful calamity; and even fancied that he saw his future fate rising before him in storm and darkness, through which menacing images were indistinctly shadowed. Bartholdy, meanwhile, appeared as much exhilarated as if returning from a comedy, and amused himself with making sarcastic and ludicrous remarks upon the saddened countenances of the returning spectators.