believed that she felt; not because she feared, by a trifle, to lose a heart for which she had set no traps, and of whose possession she was determined not to dream at all. So much for nothings! But as nothings are the small casters on which the great machine of the world goes lumbering along, one may pause to mark them for a moment, without a fault. But now to more serious matters. Burrel soon recovered that degree of ease which he had never lost in the eyes of any other person, although he felt the loss himself, and the breakfast passed over in that sort of light and variable conversation which allows all to shine in turn who are capable of shining. It was about the time of some serious disturbances in France; and those events naturally suggested themselves, at least to the three gentlemen, as the most interesting topic of the day. "What think you, then, Mr. Burrel," demanded Sir Sidney Delaware, "of La---- coming forth in his old age to renew the scenes which, in his youth, he first excited, and then lamented?" "The great misfortune is," replied Burrel, "that his name should be able to do so much, when he himself is unable to do any thing." "You mean that he is in his dotage," said Captain Delaware. "Is it not so?" "I mean merely," replied Burrel, "that he is in that state of mental decrepitude where the plaudits of a mob of any kind, either of porters or peers, would make him commit any folly for the brief moment of popularity. With poor old La---- it is only now the fag-end of the great weakness of his life, vanity--that sort of gluttonous vanity that can gorge upon the offal of base and ignorant applause." "Ay, there lies the fault," replied Sir Sidney Delaware. "The man who seeks the applause of the good, the wise, and the generous, is next in honorable ambition to him who seeks the approbation of his God; but he whose depraved appetite finds food in the gratulating shout of an assemblage of the ignorant, the base, and the vicious--like--like--I could mention many, but I will not--he, however, who does so, is a moral swine, and only swills the filth of the public kennel in another sense." "Papa, papa!" cried Blanche Delaware. "In pity, let me finish breakfast before you indulge in such figures of rhetoric. William, in mercy change the subject! Can not you tell us some of the pretty stories about Sicily and its beloved _Mongibeddo_, with which you charmed my ears when first you came from the Mediterranean?" "Not I, indeed, Blanche!" replied her brother; "for, on the faith of those stories, you had nearly persuaded my father to go abroad, which would not suit my views of promotion at all." "And did Miss Delaware really wish to visit foreign lands?" demanded Burrel. "We should not easily have forgiven you."