"I don't deny, my dears, that he was a naughty man. But I can tell you one thing, all the naughty men are not in disgrace yet, though he is. And, if you please, Miss Fanny, with all your virtuous sniffs, dear, and all your hugging of men in waltzing, darling, Colonel Burr was not sent to Coventry because he was naughty. He might have been naughty all the days of his life, and Mrs. Jacob Van Boozenberg and the rest of 'em would have been quite as glad to have him at their houses. No, no, dears, society doesn't punish men for being naughty--only women. I am older than you, and I have observed that society likes spice in character. It doesn't harm a man to have stories told about him." No ball was complete without Abel Newt. Ladies, meditating parties, engaged him before they issued a single invitation. At dinners he was sparkling and agreeable, with tact enough not to extinguish the other men, who yet felt his superiority and did not half like it. They imitated his manner; but what was ease or gilded assurance in him was open insolence, or assurance with the gilt rubbed off, in them. The charm and secret of his manner lay in an utter devotion, which said to every woman, "There's not a woman in the world who can resist me, except you. Have you the heart to do it?" Of course this manner was assisted by personal magnetism and beauty. Wilkes said he was only half an hour behind the handsomest man in the world. But he would never have overtaken him if the handsome man had been Wilkes. In his dress Abel was costly and elegant. With the other men of his day, he read "Pelham" with an admiration of which his life was the witness. Pelham was the Byronic hero made practicable, purged of romance, and adapted to society. Mr. Newt, Jun., was one of a small but influential set of young men about town who did all they could to repair the misfortune of being born Americans, by imitating the habits of foreign life. It was presently clear to him that residence under the parental roof was incompatible with the habits of a strictly fashionable man. "There are hours, you know, mother, and habits, which make a separate lodging much more agreeable to all parties. I have friends to smoke, or to drink a glass of punch, or to play a game of whist; and we must sing, and laugh, and make a noise, as young men will, which is not seemly for the paternal mansion, mother mine." With which he took his admiring mother airily under the chin and kissed her--not having mentioned every reason which made a separate residence desirable.