for the one nor yet received the other. But what is
this son, Monsieur Montigny, that you would have
me believe to be so formidable? Is he another Lu-
cifer, couched at my ward's ear, as his dark prototype
once squatted at that of Eve? Or is he Lothario alive
again? Is he Leander, and are the Ottawa's jaws a
western Hellespont, with my ward and Stillyside, for
Hero and her tower?"

"Your verandah," remarked the seigneur, "is not
higher than was Hero's tower, although, I trust, your
ward's virtue may be more exalted than was Hero's.
But are you aware, sir, that already my son has had
her company, alone, at midnight, on your grounds;
all others retired; she alone watching, with Claude
Montigny and the broad, full moon?"

"An actionable moon," exclaimed the lawyer, "and
a decided case of lunacy against the lovers. But,
alas, sir, in this respect we have all been sinners in
our youth, and all grown wondrous righteous with
our years. Have we not ourselves, when we were
young, -- ay, and upon inclement winter nights too,
courted brown peasant girls beneath both stars and
moon? What if the nights were cold, the blood was
warm; and now with these volcanic veins of ours
grown cool, why, we may walk on the quenched crater
of concupiscence, and who dares challenge us, and say,
ha, ha! smut clings to you, gentlemen; you have
the smell of fire upon you. No, sir, no; we are fu-
migated, ventilated, scented, powdered, purged as with
hyssop. Pish! he must be truly an Ethiop, whom
time cannot whiten; a very leopard, who will not
part with his spots, since the sun himself shall lose
_his_ some day, purged in his own fires."

[[56]]

p055 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p056w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p057

v?