u'll come back quite a new man to-morrow."

Not till night, when the shop was closed, did Leonard return to his
lodging. And when he entered the room, he was struck to the soul by the
silence, by the void. Helen was gone!

There was a rose-tree in its pot on the table at which he wrote, and by
it a scrap of paper, on which was written,

DEAR, dear brother Leonard, God bless you. I will let you know when
we can meet again. Take care of this rose, Brother, and don't
forget poor

HELEN.

Over the word "forget" there was a big round blistered spot that nearly
effaced the word.

Leonard leaned his face on his hands, and for the first time in his life
he felt what solitude really is. He could not stay long in the room.
He walked out again, and wandered objectless to and fro the streets. He
passed that stiller and humbler neighbourhood, he mixed with the throng
that swarmed in the more populous thoroughfares. Hundreds and thousands
passed him by, and still--still such solitude.

He came back, lighted his candle, and resolutely drew forth the
"Chatterton" which the bookseller had lent him. It was an old edition,
in one thick volume. It had evidently belonged to some contemporary
of the poet's,--apparently an inhabitant of Bristol,--some one who
had gathered up many anecdotes respecting Chatterton's habits, and who
appeared even to have seen him, nay, been in his company; for the book
was interleaved, and the leaves covered with notes and remarks, in
a stiff clear hand,--all evincing personal knowledge of the mournful
immortal dead. At first, Leonard read with an effort; then the strange
and fierce spell of that dread life seized upon him,--seized with pain
and gloom and terror,--this boy dying by his own hand, about the age
Leonard had attained himself. This wondrous boy, of a genius beyond all
comparison the greatest that ever yet was developed and extinguished
at the age of eighteen,--self-taught, self-struggling, self-immolated.
Nothing in literature like that life and that death!

With intense interest Leonard perused the tale of the brilliant
imposture, which had been so harshly and so absurdly construed into the
crime of a forgery, and which was (if not wholly innocent) so akin to
the literary devices always in other cases viewed with indulgence,
and exhibiting, in this, intellectual qualities in themselves so
amazing,--such patience, such forethought, such labour, such courage,
such ingenuity,--the