importance to write about,” replied Zabra. “Things at Columbia may remain in the same state as at his last despatch.”

“I doubt it. I doubt that the emperor will remain satisfied with his prerogatives curtailed to the extent to which they have lately been reduced,” said Oriel Porphyry. “There is no sincerity in these men. They will break any compact when it suits their convenience. They have no notion of either honour or honesty: and the emperor is a weak, vain, foolish man, proud, tyrannical, and deceitful. Such a man must be ever scheming to regain his former power; and if he think it be practicable he will not be particular as to the means he will employ for that purpose. I am much afraid my father has fallen a sacrifice to his patriotism.”

“It cannot be,” observed his companion. “They would not dare harm him.”

“Dare!” echoed his patron. “What evil will not bad men dare? And did not that proud upstart Philadelphia load his honourable limbs with chains and thrust him into a loathsome dungeon to die the lingering death of starvation? He dared do that, and I doubt much whether a worse villainy could have been perpetrated. I hope to live to see the time when I shall have an opportunity of bringing him to an account for these and other atrocities. If my good sword be true, and my arm has lost none of its power, I’ll not leave his worthless body till I have relieved it of his equally worthless soul.”

“What!” exclaimed Zabra, with considerable excitement, “would you be thus revengeful to the father of Eureka? You too, who a short time since seemed ready to forgive him all his errors on account of his relationship to her. What has changed you? Why would you follow the bad examples of bad men? That he is not what he should be is too true; but that is no reason why you should become his executioner. Do you think that Eureka could regard you with affection when you came to her stained with her father’s blood? I am surprised that you should have given utterance to such a sentiment.”

“I knew not till lately the atrocities he had committed, and the savage disposition he possessed,” replied the young merchant; “and I can see no more harm in killing such a monster than there is in destroying a mad beast.”

“How different then your feelings must be to those of your father,” observed the other. “He knew what was due to humanity, and practised it, and he was the person best entitled to call for vengeance, but he was satisfied with justice. Professing the regard you do towards Eureka, nothing could surprise me more than to hear you proclaim so inhuman a wish.”

“It is impossible for me to help feeling exasperated against him,” said Oriel. “Imagine for a moment yourself in my situation. Let your father be as mine is, the kindest and noblest of his species; know that he who never did harm to any living creature, but sought to create happiness throughout the world—was fettered and reviled, and left lingering in filth and darkness for three days, enduring all the pangs of famine; and if you have a heart within your breast, and a soul that hates the cowardly vices of despotism, you will feel as I do, and long for an opportunity to punish your father’s persecutor, in a manner worthy of his crimes. I know that your relationship to the offender must stand in the way of your seeing the justice of the punishment I would inflict: but I am no hypocrite Zabra. I cannot disguise my detestation of such a monster; and although next to Eureka and my father I honour you, even your opposition would not make me change a sentiment so natural and appropriate.”

“Leave Philadelphia to his own feelings, which sooner or later will be sufficient punishment,” responded Zabra. “Touch him not if you value the love of Eureka. She I know has little cause to feel much affection for him, but bad as he is she never can be brought to look upon his destroyer with any feeling save that of repugnance.”

“If that be the case I hope he will keep out of my way,” rejoined the young merchant; “for I think I could endure anything rather than her dislike; but the absence of intelligence from my father has certainly made me suspicious. I am almost determined to return to Columbia without proceeding to England.”

“I do not think such a course advisable, Oriel,” observed Zabra. “There may be a thousand things that prevent your father’s correspondence, or he may have written, and the despatches may have been lost. If this be the case, and there is a great probability that it is, he would be very much vexed at your returning without having accomplished your voyage.”

“Well, I will proceed, but I will only make a brief stay among the antiquities of England, and then steer direct for Columbia,” replied Oriel Porphyry: “I have very strong doubts about things being exactly right there. The accounts I have heard are of a contrary tendency; but if the storm is to be, it will come unexpected. If any attempt be made by the government to restore the old order of things, I hope they will have the goodness to wait till my return before they commence their proceedings. There is a powerful regiment of horse, composed of the young citizens of Columbus, of which I have the command; I believe that they are devoted to my will; and even with these, although they are not above a thousand strong, I would make such a stand as would soon bring around me all the brave spirits in the country: I only wish for an opportunity to try the experiment.”

“Will you never dismiss these delusive visions,” said his young friend, anxiously. “I thought that you were at last becoming reconciled to a more useful and amiable way of life.”

“You have been deceived, Zabra,” observed Oriel; “I have been more quiet, but not less ambitious. This passion for glory has become a part of my nature; it is with me at all times. I think of it and dream of it. It is the anticipation of finding the opportunity for greatness that makes me able to endure the tedious inactivity of my present mode of existence. I shall never be satisfied till I acquire the power for which I yearn.”

“What an unhappy nature yours must be then,” replied Zabra. “You have every hope of happiness within your reach; yet because it does not come clothed in the gorgeous draperies in which you wish it to appear, you seem desirous of dismissing it, as of not sufficient value to be enjoyed. I had hoped that you had become wiser; I had hoped, too, that you had been more solicitous for the happiness of Eureka. I am afraid all my labour has been thrown away, and that I shall have to return to her with the intelligence that your ambitious hopes have stifled every feeling of affection.”

“There you wrong me,” exclaimed the young merchant, “you wrong me exceedingly. My aspirations for greatness are never separate from my hopes of Eureka; because the first are merely the result of the latter. It is useless attempting to check the impulses which urge me on. I must be what I am; and while my state of being, and the purposes which it creates and would see fulfilled, cannot in any way dishonour Eureka, nothing will convince me that they are to be condemned. From my own knowledge of her character, I cannot imagine that she would regard my efforts for advancement with the feeling which you have stated she possesses. Her own greatness of soul must bring her to look with commendation on another, who evinces a desire to obtain a similar greatness: this ambition is a passion so entirely of her own creating, that she cannot, with any justice, be displeased with its