business; therefore he determined to practise law in an easy manner,
until a rich wife, or the "tricks" of his craft, would permit an entire
devotion to the pleasures of affluence.

In accordance with this idea, his first step, after the death of his
father, had been to locate himself in the magnificent apartments we have
described. He gave up the house in which his father had dwelt, and,
fitting up a sleeping-room in the rear of the office with oriental
splendor, his life and habits were free from the scrutinizing gaze of
friend and foe, and he found himself situated as nearly to his mind as
his income would permit. These indications of a dissolute life were
viewed with distrust by the more respectable of his clients. His
subsequent actions were not calculated to increase their confidence;
yet, for the respect they bore to the father's memory, they were slow in
casting off the son.

Mr. Maxwell smoked his cigar, and occasionally uttered an impatient
exclamation, as though some scheme he was turning in his mind refused to
accommodate itself to his means. He was evidently engaged in the
consideration of some complicated affair; and the more he thought, the
more impatient he grew. He finished his cigar, and lit another; still
the knotty point was not conquered. His haggard countenance at one
moment was lighted up, as though success had dawned upon his mental
contest; but at the next moment it darkened into disappointment, which
he vented in an audible oath.

While thus laboring in his perplexity, the door communicating with the
ante-chamber was opened, and the boy in attendance very formally
announced "Miss Dumont."