d very soon the resemblance of vehicle
and driver to the turnout of the doctor became so striking that I
concealed myself in the shrubbery by the wayside until the sound of
the wheels told me he was well past. The probability that my pursuer
was in front of me was an added source of discomfort which led me
to avoid the road and walk in the woods wherever the former was not
visible to some distance ahead. But I neither saw nor heard anything
more of the supposed pursuer, though, from what I afterward learned,
there can be little doubt that it was actually Foshay himself.

The advent of darkness soon relieved me of the threatened danger,
but added new causes of solicitude. The evening advanced, and the
lights in the windows of the houses were becoming fewer and fewer,
and yet the stage had not appeared. I slackened my pace, and made
many stops, beginning to doubt whether I might not as well give up the
stage and look for an inn. It was, I think, after ten o'clock when
the rattling of wheels announced its approach. It was on a descending
grade, and passed me like a meteor, in the darkness, quite heedless
of my calls and gesticulations. Fortunately a house was in sight
where I was hospitably entertained, and I was very soon sound asleep,
as became one who had walked fifty miles or more since daylight.

Thus ended a day to which I have always looked back as the most
memorable of my life. I felt its importance at the time. As I
walked and walked, the question in my mind was, what am I doing and
whither am I going? Am I doing right or wrong? Am I going forward
to success in life, or to failure and degradation? Vainly, vainly,
I tried to peer into the thick darkness of the future. No definite
idea of what success might mean could find a place in my mind.
I had sometimes indulged in daydreams, but these come not to a mind
occupied as mine on that day. And if they had, and if fancy had
been allowed its wildest flight in portraying a future, it is safe
to say that the figure of an honorary academician of France, seated
in the chair of Newton and Franklin in the palace of the Institute,
would not have been found in the picture.

As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that
former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions
has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of
prosperity. If depressed by trial, I think how light would this have
appeared to th