The pure unmixed, the pure juice of the grape for me."

"But, Chester," urged Wren, "won't the pure mountain dew be a sufficient inducement?"

"The good company will be a sufficient inducement," said Chester, waving his hand,—"the good company, gentlemen,—and the good liquor. But what have we here? Meredith and Vinal walking side by side. Good Heavens, what a conjunction!"

The objects of Chester's astonishment, on a flattering invitation from Wren, joined the party, which, however, was weakened by the temporary secession of Rosny, who, pleading an errand in the village, left them with a promise to rejoin them soon. His place was in a few moments more than supplied by a new party of recruits, among whom was Stubb. Arrived at Wren's room, the desk and other appliances of study were banished from the table; bottles and glasses usurped their place, and the company composed themselves for conversation, most of them permitting their chairs to stand quietly on all fours, though one or two, like heathen Yankees from the backwoods, forced them to rear rampant on the hind legs, the occupant's feet resting on the ledge over the fireplace.

A few minutes passed, when a quick, firm step came up the stairs, and Rosny entered.

"How are you again, Dick?" said Meredith.

"Good evening, Mr. Rosny," echoed Stubb, who sat alone on the window seat.

"Eh? what's that?" demanded Rosny, turning sharp round upon the last speaker, with a face divided between indignation and laughter.

"I said, 'Good evening,'" replied Stubb, much disconcerted.

"And why didn't you say, 'Good morning,' yesterday, eh?—when I met you in Boston, eh? He gave me the cut direct," turning to the company. "Mr. Benjamin Stubb, here, gave me the cut direct! It was the pepper-and-salt coat and the thunder-and-lightning breeches that Stubb couldn't think of bowing to when he was walking in —— Street, with a lady. Look here, Stubb,"—again facing the victim,—"what do you take me for? and what the devil do you take yourself for? I know your dirty family history. Your grandfather was a bricklayer, and the Lord knows who your great grandfather was. The best Huguenot blood of France runs in my veins! My ancestors were fighting at Ivry and Jarnac, while yours were peddling coal and potatoes about London streets, or digging mud in a ditch, for any thing you or I know to the contrary." Stubb gasped. "Your father has a crest painted on his carriage; but where did he get it? Why, Cribb, the engraver, stole it for him out of the British peerage."

Stubb, who was weak and timorous, here rose in great confusion, muttered something about conduct unbecoming to a gentleman, and meaning to require an explanation, and abruptly left the room.

"That job is finished," said Rosny, composedly seating himself. "His bill is settled for him."

"But, Dick," said Morton, who had been laughing in his sleeve during the scene, "do you want to be considered as a Frenchman or an American?"

"I'm an American," answered Rosny—"an American and a democrat, every inch."

Rosny had adopted democratic principles and habits partly out of spite against the class to which Stubb belonged, and which he was pleased to designate as the "codfish aristocracy," and partly because he thought that he could thus most effectually gain the ends of his impatient, hankering ambition. His ancestor, the head of an eminent Huguenot race, had been driven to America by the persecutions which followed the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The family had lived ever since in poverty and obscurity; yet this fiery young democrat nourished an inordinate pride of birth, and never forgot that he was descended from a line of warlike nobles.

"No, no," said Rosny, as Morton pushed a glass towards him, "drinking is against my rule— Well, as it's about the last time,"—filling the glass,—"here's to you all."

"The last time!" said Morton; "that's a dismal word. If my next four years are as pleasant as these last have been, I will never complain of them."

"I tell you, boys," said Meredith, who was tranquilly puffing at his cigar, "the cream of our lives is skimmed already. Rough and tumble, hurry and worry—that will be the story with most of us, more or less, to the end of our days."

"Rough and tumble!" exclaimed Rosny; "so much the better. 'Scots play best at the roughest game'—that's just my case. Who wants to be always paddling about on smooth water? Close reefed topsails, a gale astern, and breakers all round—that's the game."

"Every one to his taste," said Chester, shrugging his shoulders. "I suppose a salamander loves the fire, but I don't. 'The race of ambition'—'the unconquerable will'—pshaw! Cui bono? One chases after his object, and when he has got it, he turns from it, and chases another. I profess the philosophy of Horace—enjoy the hour as it flies. Ah! he was a model man, a man after my own heart, a gentleman and a man of the world. He could drink his Falernian, and thank the gods for their gifts."

Rosny whispered in Morton's ear, "Chester ought to have been born a century ago, among the John Bulls, up in the cockloft of Brazen Nose College, or some such antediluvian hole."

In spite of these derogatory remarks, Chester, besides being one of the best scholars in the class, was noted for a social, jovial disposition, which, though, like Fluellen's valor, a little out of fashion, made him a general favorite.

"Speaking of the next four years," said Wren, "I wonder what plans each of us has made for that time. For my part, I have no plan at all, and should be glad to profit by the suggestions of the rest. Come, Chester, what do you mean to do?"

"Expatiate," said Chester, expanding his hands, and thereby revealing an odd little antique ring which he wore; "take mine ease, roaming, like the bee, from blossom to blossom. I will leave the earnest men—bah!—the men with a mission—to grub on in their vocation. I will renounce this land of cotton mills and universal suffrage. First for Paris, to walk the Boulevards, and go to the masked balls and the opera;—vive la bagatelle!—then for Rome, to saunter through the Vatican and the picture galleries,—but not to moralize with a long face over fallen grandeur, and the mutability of human affairs. No, no, gentlemen, I belong to another school of philosophy. I will sit among the ruins of the Forum, and laugh, like Democritus, at the image of Death. Then I will recreate myself at Capri, like the Cæsars before me; then enjoy the dolce far niente at Florence, and read the Tuscan poets in the shades of Vallombrosa."

"But, Chester," interposed Wren, "don't you ever mean to marry and settle down?"

"I object to that phrase, 'settle down.' It calls up disagreeable images. It reminds one of the backwoods, log cabins, men in shirt sleeves, and piles of pine boards and lumber. Yes, certainly, I mean to marry. What man of taste would leave matrimony out of his scheme of life? One likes to gather his treasures round him, his pictures, his vases, and statues; and how can he adorn his rooms with an ornament more exquisite—where can he find a piece of furniture more charmingly moulded—than a beautiful woman?"

This flourish, between jest and earnest, he pronounced with a graceful wave of his hand.

"If, when you have married your beautiful woman," said Morton, "you find you have caught a Tartar, it will serve you right."

"Hear him," said Chester; "hear the barbarian. He will always be conjuring up some image of disquiet. 'Rest, rest, perturbed spirit.'"

"He could not rest, if he tried," said Horace Vinal.

"No, he is one of those unfortunates who lie under a sentence of endless activity. It is a disease, with which men are afflicted for the sins of their ancestors; and for the sins of mine I was born among a whole nation of such. Perpetual motion, bustle and whirl,—I grow dizzy to think of it. They cannot rest themselves, and will not let any one else rest.