“The usage hath its abuses,” continued the dealer in contraband, speaking thoughtfully; “but it is not without its good.  There are many of the weak and vain, that would be happier in the cloisters, than if left to the seductions and follies of life.—­Ah! here is work of English hands.  I scarcely know how the articles found their way into the company of the products of the foreign looms.  My bales contain, in general, little that is vulgarly sanctioned by the law.  Speak me, frankly, belle Alida, and say if you share in the prejudices against the character of us free-traders?”

“I pretend not to judge of regulations that exceed the knowledge and practices of my sex,” returned the maiden, with commendable reserve.  “There are some who think the abuse of power a justification of its resistance, while others deem a breach of law to be a breach of morals.”

“The latter is the doctrine of your man of invested moneys and established fortune!  He has entrenched his gains behind acknowledged barriers, and he preaches their sanctity, because they favor his selfishness.  We skimmers of the sea—­”

Alida started so suddenly, as to cause her companion to cease speaking.

“Are my words frightful, that you pale at their sound?”

“I hope they were used rather in accident, than with their dreaded meaning.  I would not have it said—­no! ’tis but a chance that springs from some resemblance in your callings.  One, like you, can never be the man whose name has grown into a proverb!”

“One like me, beautiful Alida, is much as fortune wills.  Of what man, or of what name wouldst speak?”

“’Tis nothing,” returned la belle Barberie, gazing unconsciously at the polished and graceful features of the stranger, longer than was wont in maiden.  “Proceed with your explanation;—­these are rich velvets!”

“They come of Venice, too; but commerce is like the favor which attends the rich, and the Queen of the Adriatic is already far on the decline.  That which causes the increase of the husbandman, occasions the downfall of a city.  The lagunes are filling with fat soil, and the keel of the trader is less frequent there than of old.  Ages hence, the plow may trace furrows where the Bucentaur has floated!  The outer India passage has changed the current of prosperity, which ever rushes in the widest and newest track.  Nations might learn a moral, by studying the sleepy canals and instructive magnificence of that fallen town; but pride fattens on its own lazy recollections, to the last!—­As I was saying, we rovers deal little in musty maxims, that are made by the great and prosperous at home, and are trumpeted abroad, in order that the weak and unhappy should be the more closely riveted in their fetters.”

“Methinks you push the principle further than is necessary, for one whose greatest offence against established usage is a little hazardous commerce.  These are opinions, that might unsettle the world.”