Plainly, Mrs. Bergan had something on her mind, that bright spring morning. Though she poured her husband\'s second cup of coffee with a deliberation that seemed to promise much for its flavor, he was fain to send it back, after tasting it, with the explanatory remark:—

"You have forgotten to smile into it, my dear; it is not sweet enough."

"Eh!" exclaimed Mrs. Bergan, absently, extending her hand toward the cream pitcher.

"I doubt if cream will mend the matter much," observed Mr. Bergan, gravely. "A lump of sugar might do, if the smile be absolutely non est."

Mrs. Bergan\'s mind having by this time returned to the business in hand, both sugar and smile were immediately forthcoming, in sufficient measure to threaten the coffee with excess of sweets. Nevertheless, she continued to have fits of abstraction, at short intervals, until the breakfast things had been removed, and Carice had quitted the room. Then, she turned to her husband with a serious face.

"I really think, Godfrey," she began, "that we owe your nephew some attention."

"Of what kind, pray?" inquired Mr. Bergan, in considerable surprise.

"Well, it seems to me that we ought,—once, at least,—to invite him formally to dinner."

"Pray, what has he been doing, to place us under such an obligation?" asked Mr. Bergan, somewhat dryly.

Mrs. Bergan colored slightly. "I am afraid that we made a mistake at the outset," said she. "Of course, the attention was due to him then as much as now."

"I thought we agreed that the less Carice saw of him, the better," replied Mr. Bergan.

"Yes, I know. But that was because we believed him to be of intemperate habits."

Men of Godfrey Bergan\'s thoughtful and deliberate character, when they adopt a mistaken opinion, are wont to wedge it in so firmly among things undeniably true and just, that to dislodge it is like tearing up an oak which has rooted itself in a rock cleft. "I wish I were certain that he is not," he answered, with a slow, grave shake of the head.

Mrs. Bergan gave him a surprised look. "I don\'t see why you should doubt him," said she. "Everybody agrees that a more correct young man does not exist. He is always to be found in his office during office hours, attends Church regularly on Sundays, as well as at most of the occasional services, goes into but little society, and that of the very best,—what more would you have?"

"Nothing," replied her husband, "except the certainty that it will last. A drunkard\'s reform is so rarely a permanent thing, that one is justified in distrusting it. Though he may keep as sober as a Carthusian monk for a few months, or even for a year or two, his unhappy appetite is only a caged lion: in the first unguarded moment, it is certain to break out, and to sweep everything before it—resolution, hope, energy, and promise. Unfortunately for my nephew, perhaps, but very fortunately for ourselves, I fancy, I happen to retain a distinct recollection of my first meeting with him."

"But," urged Mrs. Bergan, "I thought Carice told you what your brother Harry said about that matter."

"With all due respect for my brother Harry," returned her husband, coolly, "I don\'t consider his testimony, in this matter, to be worth much. Intemperance is, in his estimation, so very venial a sin,—not to say, so very Berganly a virtue,—that he would be sure to extenuate it, if he could."

"He would never say what was not true," affirmed Mrs. Bergan, decidedly.

"No, but he would look at the affair from his own point of view, and speak accordingly."

"But your nephew left him on account of that very affair," persisted Mrs. Bergan, "and has refused to have anything to do with him since, even with Bergan Hall held out to him as a bait."

"In which," rejoined Mr. Bergan, composedly, "he shows that he has more of the hereditary temper than is good for him, or any one connected with him. It is the same trait that has made Harry so bitter against us, all these years. And one feud in the family was enough—and too much."

Mrs. Bergan began to look annoyed. While she admitted the general truth of her husband\'s observations, she had an intuitive conviction of their present misapplication. Her womanly instincts were all in Bergan\'s favor. But that, she knew, was no ground of effective argument.

Her husband looked at her clouded face, for a moment, and then went to her side. "Confess now, Clarissa," said he, pleasantly, laying his hand on her shoulder, "that our nephew\'s claims upon our attention would never have presented themselves so strongly to your mind, were it not for his late brilliant hit in the court room, and the sudden admiration and popularity which it has won him."

A slight flush showed on Mrs. Bergan\'s cheek; nevertheless, she met her husband\'s eyes frankly. "I acknowledge that those things had their effect in making me ashamed of myself," she answered. "But, all the time, I have had an uneasy feeling that we were not doing our duty by your sister\'s son. Surely, we ought to have been the very last persons to have listened to, and acted upon, a rumor unfavorable to him; or, if it were certain that he had made a false step, we should have been ready with our influence and countenance, to help him to retrieve himself."

"You forget, my dear," said Mr. Bergan, gently, "that it was for Carice\'s sake. We were thinking only of her."

"And so we did evil that good might come," returned his wife, somewhat ruefully. "But evil follows the universal law, and brings forth after its kind."

"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Bergan, looking both surprised and puzzled.

Mrs. Bergan smiled at him half-pityingly, half-sarcastically. "Oh, ye men!" she exclaimed, "if ye are wise as serpents, in matters of the intellect, ye are blind as bats, in matters of the heart."

"I am ready to admit the truth of the abstract proposition," said Mr. Bergan, quizzically, "as soon as I am made to understand in what way I furnish a proof of it."

"Don\'t you see," returned Mrs. Bergan, seriously, "that if ever Carice is to become over-interested in Bergan, now is the time,—now that he is presented to her imagination in the attractive light of a long neglected and misunderstood, but patient, persevering, and, finally, all-conquering hero?"

Mr. Bergan looked as if he did see—several things. "Is that the reason why you propose to throw them together?" he asked, dryly.

"Certainly," replied Mrs. Bergan, with perfect composure. "The first thing is to destroy the halo with which he is now surrounded, by bringing him into the disenchanting daylight of commonplace, everyday association. Next, we must rob him of the crown of martyrdom, so far as we are concerned, by frankly confessing that we were a little too severe upon him at first, and by doing full justice to his talents in a matter-of-fact way. Finally, we must make the most of the relationship."

"You may be right," said Mr. Bergan, after some moments of deep thought. "Though, at first sight, it looks very much like jumping into the river, to avoid the rain."

"My dear," replied Mrs. Bergan, earnestly, "we cannot keep them apart, if we would, as matters are now turning. Twice already, we have met him at dinner parties, where he is the lion of the hour, and everybody makes much of him but ourselves; and we shall continue to do so, until the round is finished. It must be confessed that he wears his honors modestly; at times, I cannot help feeling proud of him myself."

"I never doubted his ability, nor overlooked his pleasing manners," said Mr. Bergan. "But what are they but gems on a poisoned cup, if the virus of intemperance be in his blood, or his principles be unsound?"

"The latter can hardly be the case," remarked Mrs. Bergan, "if the report be true that he refuses to have anything to do with a cause that he does not believe to be just. That seems to argue uncommon strength of principle."

"I am not so sure about that," returned Mr. Bergan, shaking his head dubiously. "Most people, I find, regard it as one of the many eccentricities of genius. Others think he only showed his shrewdness in declining to undertake a cause that he was sure to lose, after his brilliant victory in the case of Corlew vs. Kenan. Besides, he has not announced that such is to be his settled course of action. And if he did, it would seem arrogant, in so young a man. It is, in fact, judging the cause before it is tried."

"It strikes me that a man must needs judge things beforehand, where his own conscience is concerned," observed Mrs. Bergan, thoughtfully. "You would not expect him to act first, and decide afterward whether he had done right or wrong."

"In judging his own actions, he need not judge those of his fellows," replied Mr. Bergan, somewhat ............