Our success was for some time unlimited, for we held the wheel of fortune, and trusted not to her caprice. Thoughtless and voluptuous by nature, my expenses fully kept pace with my income. An unlucky discovery of the practices of our party was at length made by a young nobleman, which obliged us to act for some time with the utmost circumspection. It would be tedious to relate the particulars, which made us at length so suspected, that the distant civility and cold reserve of our acquaintance rendered the frequenting public assemblies both painful and unprofitable. We turned our thoughts to other modes of obtaining money; and a swindling transaction, in which I engaged to a very large amount, soon compelled me to leave Paris. You know the rest my Lord. La Motte was now silent, and the Marquis continued for some time musing. You perceive, my Lord, at length resumed La Motte, you perceive that my case is hopeless. It is bad indeed, but not entirely hopeless. From my soul I pity you: yet, if you should return to the world, and incur the danger of prosecution, I think my interest with the minister might save you from any severe punishment. You seem, however, to have lost your relish for society, and perhaps do not wish to return to it. Oh! my Lord can you doubt this?--But I am overcome with the excess of your goodness; would to heaven it were in my power to prove the gratitude it inspires! Talk not of goodness, said the Marquis; I will not pretend that my desire of serving you is unalloyed by any degree of self-interest: I will not affect to be more than man, and trust me those who do are less. It is in your power to testify your gratitude, and bind me to your interest for ever. He paused. Name but the means, cried La Motte,--name but the means, and if they are within the compass of possibility they shall be executed. The Marquis was still silent. Do you doubt my sincerity, my Lord, that you are yet silent? Do you fear to repose a confidence in the man whom you have already loaded with obligation? who lives by your mercy, and almost by your means! The Marquis looked earnestly at him, but did not speak. I have not deserved this of you, my Lord; speak, I entreat you. There are certain prejudices attached to the human mind, said the Marquis in a slow and solemn voice, which it requires all our wisdom to keep from interfering with our happiness; certain set notions, acquired in infancy, and cherished involuntarily by age, which grow up and assume a gloss so plausible, that few minds, in what is called a civilized country, can afterwards overcome them. Truth is often perverted by education. While the refined Europeans boast a standard of honour and a sublimity of virtue which often leads them from pleasure to misery, and from nature to error, the simple uninformed American follows the impulse of his heart, and obeys the inspiration of wisdom. The Marquis paused, and La Motte continued to listen in eager expectation.