“Do you know the moral of that remark of yours?”

“Moral?  Heaven forbid!  I don’t make moral remarks,” replied Arthur.

“This time you have done it,” she said, smiling; “you have made a remark with a moral.  I’m going, and I leave it with you as a legacy.  The moral is, If goddesses never marry, don’t fall in love with a goddess.”

She put out her hand to him as she spoke.  He involuntarily took it, and they shook hands warmly.

“Good-morning, Mr. Merlin,” she said.  “Remember the Round Table to-morrow evening.”

She was gone, and Arthur Merlin sank into the chair she had just left.

“Oh Heavens!” said he, “did she understand or not?”

CHAPTER LXV.

THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE.

General Belch’s office was in the lower part of Nassau Street.  At the outer door there was a modest slip of a tin sign, “Arcularius Belch, Attorney and Counselor.”  The room itself was dingy and forlorn.  There was no carpet on the floor; the windows were very dirty, and slats were broken out of the blinds—­the chairs did not match—­there was a wooden book-case, with a few fat law-books lounging upon the shelves; the table was a chaos of pamphlets, printed forms, newspapers, and files of letters, with a huge inkstand, inky pens, and a great wooden sand-box.  Upon each side of the chimney, the grate in which was piled with crushed pieces of waste paper, and the bars of which were discolored with tobacco juice, stood two large spittoons, the only unsoiled articles in the office.

This was the place in which General Belch did business.  It had the atmosphere of Law.  But, above all, it was the spot where, with one leg swinging over the edge of the table and one hand waving in earnest gesticulation, General Belch could say to every body who came, and especially to his poorer fellow-citizens, “I ask no office; I am content with my moderate practice.  It is enough for me, in this glorious country, to be a friend of the people.”

As he said this—­or only implied it in saying something else—­the broken slats, the dirty windows, the uncarpeted floor, the universal untidiness, whispered in the mind of the hearer, “Amen!”

His residence, however, somewhat atoned for the discomfort of his office.  Not unfrequently he entertained his friends sumptuously; and whenever any of the representatives of his party, who acted in Congress as his private agents, had succeeded—­as on one occasion, already commemorated, the Hon. Mr. Ele had—­in putting a finer edge upon a favorite axe, General Belch entertained a select circle who agreed with him in his political philosophy, and were particular friends of the people and of the popular institutions of their country.

Abel Newt, in response to the General’s note, had already called at that gentleman’s office, and had received overtures from him, who offered him Mr. Bodley’s seat in Congress, upon condition that he was able to see things from particular points of view.