the family. His landlady, Mrs. Brown, was, as usual, all smiles, and
welcomes, and congratulations on his return; notwithstanding which, it
was with a sense of loneliness, amounting almost to desolation, that
her lodger found himself installed again in his apartments. It seemed
like passing out of the golden sunshine into a gloomy cavern. Was it
possible that two short weeks could have produced so great a change in
him? When he thought upon the cause, the conscious blush revealed its
nature. "No," said he, aloud, as he paced backwards and forwards
in the room, "this is folly and madness. For me, a humble clerk, to
connect myself, even in imagination, with _her_! What have I to offer
her? Or what even in prospect? I have been sailing in the clouds,
and my tattered balloon is precipitated to the earth--I have been
dreaming. How delicious was the dream! But I am now awake, and will
never expose myself to the mortification of ----. I have been foolish.
No, not so; for, who could come within the range of such fascinations,
and not be charmed? But what, after all, are they to me? I will
resist this weakness, and learn to regard her as only any other valued
acquaintance; for, alas! she can never be more."

In such incoherent expressions, poor Pownal gave vent to the emotions
that agitated him. It would have been some consolation, could he have
known what was said at the Bernards', when the family gathered around
the table in the evening. Mrs. Bernard alluded more than once to the
gap his absence made in their little circle; and the Judge, in his
jesting way, wished that somebody would shoot him again, if it might
be the means to bring him back. Even Anne expressed regret at his
loss, since his company had been such a pleasure to her parents.

CHAPTER V.

"Groves freshened, as he looked, and flowers
Showed bright on rocky bank,
And fountains welled beneath the bowers,
Where deer and pheasant drank;
He saw the glittering streams, he heard
The rustling bough and twittering bird."

BRYANT.

The mind of Ohquamehud dwelt upon his meeting with Holden. Sleeping or
waking, the image of the latter pursued him. But it was not always
in the shape of the Recluse that the vision appeared. More often it
assumed the form of a young man, in the garb of a western hunter, with
a rifle in his hand. Then rose up, in connection with him, boundless
forests, through which the deer stole noiselessly, and the screec