gs left, I had
resolved that we should none of us return to Windsor. For the last time we
looked on the wide extent of country visible from the terrace, and saw the
last rays of the sun tinge the dark masses of wood variegated by autumnal
tints; the uncultivated fields and smokeless cottages lay in shadow below;
the Thames wound through the wide plain, and the venerable pile of Eton
college, stood in dark relief, a prominent object; the cawing of the myriad
rooks which inhabited the trees of the little park, as in column or thick
wedge they speeded to their nests, disturbed the silence of evening. Nature
was the same, as when she was the kind mother of the human race; now,
childless and forlorn, her fertility was a mockery; her loveliness a mask
for deformity. Why should the breeze gently stir the trees, man felt not
its refreshment? Why did dark night adorn herself with stars--man saw
them not? Why are there fruits, or flowers, or streams, man is not here to
enjoy them?

Idris stood beside me, her dear hand locked in mine. Her face was radiant
with a smile.--"The sun is alone," she said, "but we are not. A strange
star, my Lionel, ruled our birth; sadly and with dismay we may look upon
the annihilation of man; but we remain for each other. Did I ever in the
wide world seek other than thee? And since in the wide world thou
remainest, why should I complain? Thou and nature are still true to me.
Beneath the shades of night, and through the day, whose garish light
displays our solitude, thou wilt still be at my side, and even Windsor will
not be regretted."

I had chosen night time for our journey to London, that the change and
desolation of the country might be the less observable. Our only surviving
servant drove us. We past down the steep hill, and entered the dusky avenue
of the Long Walk. At times like these, minute circumstances assume giant
and majestic proportions; the very swinging open of the white gate that
admitted us into the forest, arrested my thoughts as matter of interest; it
was an every day act, never to occur again! The setting crescent of the
moon glittered through the massy trees to our right, and when we entered
the park, we scared a troop of deer, that fled bounding away in the forest
shades. Our two boys quietly slept; once, before our road turned from the
view, I looked back on the castle. Its windows glistened in the moonshine,
and its heavy outline lay in a dark mass against the sky--the trees n