g gloom.

Not a feature of the landscape on my way down was lost to me; although,
as I've said, I was thinking of Min all the time the train was speeding
on.

I was wondering within myself, in a duplicate system of thought, when I
would see the scene again, in all its variations, as I saw it clearly,
now; and whether the green meadows, and fir-summited hills, and shining
water-courses that wandered through and around them--nay, whether the
very telegraph posts and wires, and the country stations we rattled past
so quickly and unceremoniously, as if they were not worth stopping for--
would look the same on my coming back to England and my darling once
more!

But, I was not sad or down-hearted.

Her last words had rendered me almost as hopeful as she professed to be;
so, in spite of my great grief at our parting, a grief which was too
deep for words, I was endeavouring more to look forward sanguinely to
the future than dwell on all our past unhappiness--which I tried to put
away from me as a bad dream.

I was only musing, that's all.

It is impossible to keep one's mind idle, you know; for, even when
engaged in an abstract contemplation of the most engrossing theme, the
fancy _will_ stray off into by-paths that lead to strangely dissimilar
ideas and very disconnected associations.

As the German steamer in which I was going to New York did not start
until next day, I put up for the night at Radley's--that haven of shore-
comfort to the Red-Sea-roasted, Biscay-tossed, sea-sickened Indian
warriors returning home by the P and O vessels--where, you may be sure,
I met with every attention that my constitution required in the way of
rest and refreshment; and, at midday on the morrow, embarking on board
the stately _Herzog von Gottingen_, I passed through the Needles,
outward-bound across the Atlantic to the "New World" of promise!

Ocean voyages are so common now-a-days that they are not worth
mentioning.

Mine was no exception to the rule; the only noticeable point that I
observed being the rare courageous temperament of the Teutonic ladies,
and the undaunted spirit they displayed in "fighting their battles o'er
again" at the saloon table, in despite of the insidious attacks of
Neptune. No matter how frequently the fell malady of the sea should
assail them--at breakfast, or lunch, or dinner, or at any of the other
and many meals which the ship's caterer thought necessary to our diurnal
wants--these delicate fair o