"It is no bad idea," said Brandon. "I commend you for it. At all events, it is necessary that my niece should not know the situation of her lover. She is a girl of a singular turn of mind, and fortune has made her independent. Who knows but what she might commit some folly or another, write petitions to the King, and beg me to present them, or go—for she has a world of romance in her—to prison, to console him; or, at all events, she would beg my kind offices on his behalf—a request peculiarly awkward, as in all probability I shall have the honour of trying him."
"Ay, by-the-by, so you will. And I fancy the poor rogue's audacity will not cause you to be less severe than you usually are. They say you promise to make more human pendulums than any one of your brethren."
"They do say that, do they?" said Brandon; "well, I own I have a bile against my species; I loathe their folly and their half vices. 'Ridet et odit' is my motto; and I allow, that it is not the philosophy that makes men merciful!"
"Well, Juvenal's wisdom be yours!—mine be
