hing for want of keeping himself in view; and, as often happens to men
who entertain selfish objects, overshot his mark, and rendered his
attentions tedious and inconvenient.

His unrequired presence prevented me from speaking freely to Syddall, and
I dared not send him away for fear of increasing such suspicions as he
might entertain from his former abrupt dismissal from the library. "I
shall sleep here, sir," I said, giving them directions to wheel nearer to
the fire an old-fashioned day-bed, or settee. "I have much to do, and
shall go late to bed."

Syddall, who seemed to understand my look, offered to procure me the
accommodation of a mattress and some bedding. I accepted his offer,
dismissed my attendant, lighted a pair of candles, and desired that I
might not be disturbed till seven in the ensuing morning.

The domestics retired, leaving me to my painful and ill-arranged
reflections, until nature, worn out, should require some repose.

I endeavoured forcibly to abstract my mind from the singular
circumstances in which I found myself placed. Feelings which I had
gallantly combated while the exciting object was remote, were now
exasperated by my immediate neighbourhood to her whom I was so soon to
part with for ever. Her name was written in every book which I attempted
to peruse; and her image forced itself on me in whatever train of thought
I strove to engage myself. It was like the officious slave of Prior's
Solomon,--

Abra was ready ere I named her name,
And when I called another, Abra came.

I alternately gave way to these thoughts, and struggled against them,
sometimes yielding to a mood of melting tenderness of sorrow which was
scarce natural to me, sometimes arming myself with the hurt pride of one
who had experienced what he esteemed unmerited rejection. I paced the
library until I had chafed myself into a temporary fever. I then threw
myself on the couch, and endeavoured to dispose myself to sleep;--but it
was in vain that I used every effort to compose myself--that I lay
without movement of finger or of muscle, as still as if I had been
already a corpse--that I endeavoured to divert or banish disquieting
thoughts, by fixing my mind on some act of repetition or arithmetical
process. My blood throbbed, to my feverish apprehension, in pulsations
which resembled the deep and regular strokes of a distant fulling-mill,
and tingled in my veins like streams of liquid fire.