solitude; too much of my life latterly had been passed in salons
and soirees; the peaceful habit of my soul, the fruit of my own lonely
hours, had suffered grievous inroads by my partnership with the world,
and I deemed it essential to be once more apart from the jarring
influences and distracting casualties which every step in life is beset
by, were it only to recover again my habitual tranquillity--to refit the
craft ere she took the sea once more.

I wanted but little to decide my mind; the sight of an inn, some
picturesque spot, a pretty face--anything, in short, would have
sufficed. But somehow I suppose I must have been more fastidious than I
knew of, for I continued to walk onward; and at last, leaving the little
hamlet of Pepinsterre behind me, I set out with brisker pace towards
Spa. The air was calm and balmy; no leaf stirred; the river beside the
road did not even murmur, but crept silently along its gravelly bed,
fearful to break the stillness. Gradually the shadows fell stronger and
broader, and at length mingled into one broad expanse of gloom; in a few
minutes more it was night.

There is something very striking, I had almost said saddening, in the
sudden transition from day to darkness in those countries where no
twilight exists. The gradual change by which road and mountain, rock and
cliff, mellow into the hues of sunset, and grow grey in the gloaming,
deepening the shadows, and by degrees losing all outline in the dimness
around, prepares us for the gloom of night. We feel it like the tranquil
current of years marking some happy life, where childhood and youth
and manhood and age succeed in measured time. Not so the sudden and
immediate change, which seems rather like the stroke of some fell
misfortune, converting the cheerful hours into dark, brooding
melancholy. Tears may--they do--fall lightly on some; they creep with
noiseless step, and youth and age glide softly into each other without
any shock to awaken the thought that says, Adieu to this! Farewell to
that for ever!

Thus was I musing, when suddenly I found myself at the spot where the
road branched off in two directions. No house was near, nor a living
thing from whom I could ask the way. I endeavoured by the imperfect
light of the stars, for there was no moon, to ascertain which road
seemed most frequented and travelled, judging that Spa was the most
likely resort of all journeying in these parts; but unhappily I could
detect no differenc