ust own, that they partook considerably of the gloominess
of the hour, and the scenery around. The night was very dark, but I
could just see the ghost-like masses of the gigantic elms, as they
stood motionless against the gloomy sky, and could even hear the quiet
rippling sound of the river as it glided along in the distance, the
night was so very still. But all this now horribly contrasted with a
scene I had witnessed but a few hours ago on the banks of that river
now so deserted.

A school-fellow and friend had there been drowned, and I had heard his
piercing shriek as he fell from his boat. His body had not yet been
recovered. This morning we had been playing at fives together. How
were he and I occupied now! I dared hardly think, and then I pictured
to myself his listless and lifeless body rolling under the stream into
some dark depth:--

"And there I sat all heavily
As I heard the night-wind sigh--
Was it the wind that through some hollow stone
Sent that soft and tender moan!"

Just then the deep tone of the Castle death-bell came swelling across
the river from the other side. In an instant I knew it was the
harbinger of death--of the Princess Charlotte? I was right--she was
just then dead!

This now struck me as a frightful moment. It was not from the fear of
death, nor, alas! from the fear of God. What could it be? I am
convinced that no one has literally trembled from fear, but now my
heart felt as though it shivered. I stood motionless till the last and
least sound had reverberated through the now silent court, and there
was nothing to be heard but the beating of my own heart. There I stood
fixed like a statue, afraid to stir, even to heave my chest to
sigh--this, then, was superstition.

I gradually arose from my trance to be conscious of the truth; and now
even concluding it to be my duty to combat against the weakness,
though in a joyless mood, I descended the ladder.

"Time and tide tarry for no man," and I think even less for me. The
day had now come that I was to take leave of Keate and of Eton, and
return to my father's house--and for what! I had not a suspicion, or
whether I was destined for the army, church, law, or for anything
else. The prospect, however, appeared cloudy and comfortless, and I
was now to reside for an indefinite period at the only place, much as
I did love the spot, where I ever felt myself to be in the midst of
strangers. Here, apparently, I was anoth