id to touch on a theme that had so many painful
memories to himself. Ah, what happy days he had passed there! What a
bright dream it all appeared now to look back on! The long rides along
the shore, with Alice for his companion, more free to talk with him,
less reserved than Isabella; and who could, on the pretext of her own
experiences of life,--she was a widow of two-and-twenty,--caution him
against so many pitfalls, and guard him against so many deceits of the
world. It was in this same quality of widow, too, that she could go out
to sail with him alone, making long excursions along the coast, diving
into bays, and landing on strange islands, giving them curious names as
they went, and fancying that they were new voyagers on unknown seas.

Were such days ever to come back again? No, he knew they could not They
never do come back, even to the luckiest of us; and how far less would
be our enjoyment of them if we but knew that each fleeting moment
could never be re-acted! "I wonder, is Alice lonely? Does she miss me?
Isabella will not care so much. She has books and her drawing, and she
is so self-dependent; but Alice, whose cry was, 'Where 's Tony?' till it
became a jest against her in the house. Oh, if she but knew how I envy
the dog that lies at her feet, and that can look up into her soft blue
eyes, and wonder what she is thinking of! Well, Alice, it has come at
last. Here is the day you so long predicted. I have set out to seek my
fortune; but where is the high heart and the bold spirit you promised
me? I have no doubt," cried he, as he paced his room impatiently, "there
are plenty who would say, it is the life of luxurious indolence and
splendor that I am sorrowing after; that it is to be a fancied great
man,--to have horses to ride, and servants to wait on me, and my every
wish gratified,--it is all this I am regretting. But _I_ know better! I
'd be as poor as ever I was, and consent never to be better, if she 'd
just let me see her, and be with her, and love her, to my own heart,
without ever telling her. And now the day has come that makes all these
bygones!"

It was with a choking feeling in his throat, almost hysterical, that
he went downstairs and into the street to try and walk off his gloomy
humor. The great city was now before him,--a very wide and a very noisy
world,--with abundance to interest and attract him, had his mind been
less intent on his own future fortunes; but he felt that every hour he
was