ad
rather not dine at all; I was not in the least hungry. It was the
emptiness of my pocket that caused this sudden fullness, of the
stomach. Berkley made light of my objections.

"Listen! You can hear from this mountain the dinner-bells of the city.
We should arrive too late. Although you hate restored castles, you
need not refuse to dine with me in one."

[Illustration: TYROLEAN.]

The noble hall was a scene of vulgar festivity, where the ubiquitous
kellner, racing to and fro with beer and plates of sausage, solved the
problem of perpetual motion. It was not easy, in such circumstances,
to maintain the flow of poetic association, but I accomplished the
feat in a measure. As the shades of evening closed around the hill,
and the bells of twenty dining-tables ascended to us through the
still air, I thought of Gray's curfew--of that glimmering Stoke-Pogis
landscape that faded into immortality on his sight. I thought of
Matthisson's "Elegy" on this forlorn old dandy of a castle. I thought
of the sympathetic chest-notes with which I read to Mary Ashburton the
"Song of the Silent Land."

I thought of Francine, and of the condition of base terror I was in
when I ran away from her with the man who momentarily represented my
solvency, my credit and my respectability. May the foul fiend catch
me, sweet vision, if I do not find thee soon again! A Tyrolean, who
entered by stealth, persuaded a heart-rending lamentation to issue
from his wooden trumpet: although the acid sounds proceeding from this
terrible whistle set my teeth on edge and caused me at first to start
off my seat, yet I rewarded him with such a competency in copper as
made his eyes emerge from his face. A singing-girl and some blonde
bouquet-sellers had equal cause to rejoice in my generosity. It is
when a gentleman is landed finally on his coppers that he becomes
penny-liberal. I glanced defiance at Berkley, my creditor, as I
showered largess on these humble poets.

We descended under the stars, and I began to think that illuminated
gravel-roads were, at night, susceptible of some apology. We returned
to the city by easy stages, with a halt at the "Repose of Sophie."
At the hotel there was given me, re-directed in the pretty hand of
Francine, an unlimited credit from Munroe & Co. on the house of Meyer
in Baden-Baden. I was a freeman once more.

EDWARD STRAHAN.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

AUTUMN LEAVES.

My life is like the autumn leaves
Now