"Oh, I know it as I know that a rose smells sweet."

He bowed as he said it, and took her hand.

"Will you remember to ask your mother if she remembers Lawrence Newt, and if he may come and see her?"

Amy Waring said Yes, and the gentleman, bending and touching the tips of her fingers with his lips, said, "Good-by, Mrs. Simmer," and departed.

He called at Mrs. Waring's within a few days afterward. He had known her as a child, but his incessant absence from home when he was younger had prevented any great intimacy with old acquaintances. But the Darros were dancing-school friends and partners. Since those days they had become women and mothers. He had parted with Corinna Darro, a black-eyed little girl in short white frock and short curling hair and red ribbons. He met her as Mrs. Delmer Waring, a large, maternal, good-hearted woman.

This had happened two years before, and during all the time since then Lawrence Newt had often called--had met Amy in the street on many errands--had met her at balls whenever he found she was going. He did not ask her to drive with him. He did not send her costly gifts. He did nothing that could exclude the attentions of younger men. But sometimes a basket of flowers came for Miss Waring--without a card, without any clue. The good-hearted mother thought of various young men, candidates for degrees in Amy's favor, who had undoubtedly sent the flowers. The good-hearted mother, who knew that Amy was in love with none of them, pitied them--thought it was a great shame they should lose their time in such an utterly profitless business as being in love with Amy; and when any of them called said, with a good-humored sigh, that she believed her daughter would never be any thing but a Sister of Charity.

Sometimes also a new book came, and on the fly-leaf was written, "To Miss Amy Waring, from her friend Lawrence Newt." Then the good-hearted mother remarked that some men were delightfully faithful to old associations, and that it was really beautiful to see Mr. Newt keeping up the acquaintance so cordially, and complimenting his old friend so delicately by thinking of pleasing her daughter. What a pity he had never married, to have had daughters of his own! "But I suppose, Amy, some men are born to be bachelors."

"I suppose they are, mother," Amy replied, and found immediately after that she had left her scissors, she couldn't possibly remember where; perhaps in your room, mamma, perhaps in mine.

They must be looked for, however, and, O how curious! there they lay in her own room upon the table. In her own room, where she opened the new book and read in it for half an hour at a time, but always poring on the same page. It was such a profound work. It was so full of weighty matter.

When would she ever read it through at this rate, for the page over which she pored had less on it than any other page in the book. In fact it had nothing on it but that very commonplace and familiar form of words, "To Miss Amy Waring, from her friend Lawrence Newt."

Amy was entirely of her mother's opinion. Some men are undoubtedly born to be bachelors. Some men are born to be as noble as the heroes of romances--simple, steadfast, true; to be gentle, intelligent, sagacious, with an experience that has mellowed by constant and various intercourse with men, but with a heart that that intercourse has never chilled, and a faith which that experience has only confirmed. Some men are born to possess every quality of heart, and mind, and person that can awaken and satisfy the love of a woman. Yes, unquestionably, said Amy Waring in her mind, which was so cool, so impartial, so merely contemplating the subject as an abstract question, some men--let me see, shall I say like Lawrence Newt, simply as an illustration?--well, yes--some men like Lawrence Newt, for instance, are born to be all that some women dream of in their souls, and they are the very ones who are born to be bachelors.

It might be very sad not to be aware of it, thought Amy. What a profound pity it would be if any young woman should not see it, for instance, in the case of Lawrence Newt. But when a young woman is in no doubt at all, when she knows perfectly well that such a man is not intended by nature to be a marrying man, and therefore never thinks of such a thing, but only with a grace, and generosity, and delicacy beyond expression offers his general homage to the sex by giving little gifts to her, "why, then--then," thought Amy, and she was thinking so at the very moment when she sat with Gabriel and Ellen, talking in a half wild, lively, incoherent way, "why, then--then," and her eyes leaped across the room and fell, as it were, into the arms of Lawrence Newt's, which caressed them with soft light, and half-laughed "You came again, did you?"--"why, then--then," and Amy buried her face in the cool, damp roses, and did not dare to look again, "then she had better go and be a Sister of Charity."

CHAPTER XXIX.

MR. ABEL NEWT, GRAND STREET.

As the world returned to town and the late autumnal festivities began, the handsome person and self-possessed style of Mr. Abel Newt became the fashion. Invitations showered upon him. Mrs. Dagon proclaimed every where that there had been nobody so fascinating since the days of the brilliant youth of Aaron Burr, whom she declared that she well remembered, and added, that if she could say it without blushing, or if any reputable woman ought to admit such things, she should confess that in her younger days she had received flowers and even notes from that fascinating man.

"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.

So Abel Newt hired a pleasant set of rooms in Grand Street, near Broadway, in the neighborhood of other youth of the right set. He furnished them sumptuously, with the softest carpets, the most luxurious easy-chairs, the most costly curtains, and pretty, bizarre little tables, and bureaus, and shelves. Various engravings hung upon the walls; a profile-head of Bulwer, with a large Roman nose and bushy whiskers, and one of his Majesty George IV., in that famous cloak which Lord Chesterfield bought at the sale of his Majesty's wardrobe for eleven hundred dollars, and of which the sable lining alone originally cost four thousand dollars. Then there were little vases, and boxes, and caskets standing upon all possible places, with a rare flower in some one of them often, sent by some kind dowager who wished to make sure of Abel at a dinner or a select soiree. Pipes, of course, and boxes of choice cigars, were at hand, and in a convenient closet such a beautiful set of English cut glass for the use of a gentleman!

It was no wonder that the rooms of Abel Newt became a kind of club-room and elegant lounge for the gay gentlemen about town. He even gave little dinners there to quiet parties, sometimes including two or three extremely vivacious and pretty, as well as fashionably dressed, young women, whom he was not in the habit of meeting in society, but who were known quite familiarly to Abel and his friends.

Upon other occasions these little dinners took place out of town, whither the gentlemen drove alone in their buggies by daylight, and, meeting the ladies there, had the pleasure of driving them back to the city in the evening. The "buggy" of Abel's day was an open gig without a top, very easy upon its springs, but dangerous with stumbling horses. The drive was along the old Boston road, and the rendezvous, Cato's--Cato Alexander's--near the present shot-tower. If the gentlemen returned alone, they finished the evening at Benton's, in Ann Street, where they played a game of billiards; or at Thiel's retired rooms over the celebrated Stewart's, opposite the Park, where they indulged in faro.

Abel Newt lost and won his money with careless grace--always a little glad when he won, for somebody had to pay for all this luxurious life.

Boniface Newt remonstrated. His son was late at the office in the morning. He drew large sums to meet his large expenses. Several times, instead of instantly filling out the checks as Abel directed, the book-keeper had delayed, and said casually to Mr. Newt during Abel's absence at lunch, which was usually prolonged, that he supposed it was all right to fill up a check of that amount to Mr. Abel's order? Mr.

Boniface Newt replied, in a dogged way, that he supposed it was.

But one day when the sum had been large, and the paternal temper more than usually ruffled, he addressed the junior partner upon his return from lunch and his noontide glass with his friends at the Washington Hotel, to the effect that matters were going on much too rapidly.

"To what matters do you allude, father?" inquired Mr. Abel, with composure, as he picked his teeth with one hand, and surveyed a cigar which he held in the other.

"I mean, Sir, that you are spending a great deal too much money."

"Why, how is that, Sir?" asked his son, as he called to the boy in the outer office to bring him a light.

"By Heavens! Abel, you're enough to make a man crazy! Here I have put you into my business, over the heads of the clerks who are a hundred-fold better fitted for it than you; and you not only come down late and go away early, and destroy all kind of discipline by smoking and lounging, but you don't manifest the slightest interest in the business; and, above all, you are living at a frightfully ruinous rate! Yes, Sir, ruinous!

How do you suppose I can pay, or that the business can pay, for such extravagance?"

Abel smoked calmly during this energetic discourse, and blew little rings from his mouth, which he watched with interest as they melted in the air.

"Certain things are inevitable, father."

His parent, frowning and angry, growled at him as he made this remark, and muttered,

"Well, suppose they are."

"Now, father," replied his son, with great composure, "let us proceed calmly. Why should we pretend not to see what is perfectly plain?

Business nowadays proceeds by credit. Credit is based upon something, or the show of something. It is represented by a bank-bill. Here now--" And he opened his purse leisurely and drew out a five-dollar note of the Bank of New York, "here is a promise to pay five dollars--in gold or silver, of course. Do you suppose that the Bank of New York has gold and silver enough to pay all those promises it has issued? Of course not."

Abel knocked off the ash from his cigar, and took a long contemplative whiff, as if he were about making a plunge into views even more profound.

Mr. Newt, half pleased with the show of philosophy, listened with less frowning brows.

"Well, now, if by some hocus-pocus the Bank of New York hadn't a cent in coin at this moment, it could redeem the few claims that might be made upon it by borrowing, could it not?"

Mr. Newt shook his head affirmatively.

"And, in fine, if it were entirely bankrupt, it could still do a tremendous business for a very considerable time, could it not?"

Mr. Newt assented.

"And the managers, who knew it to be so, would have plenty of time to get off before an explosion, if they wanted to?"

"Abel, what do you mean?" inquired his father.

The young man was still placidly blowing rings of smoke from his mouth, and answered:

"Nothing terrible. Don't be alarmed. It is only an illustration of the practical value of credit, showing how it covers a retreat, so to speak.

Do you see the moral, father?"