ication from the notes of birds, the gurgling of a
brook, the rustling of a thousand leaves. His feeble powers, taken by
surprise, were vanquished by the summer's loveliness. Once, when our
coach stopped, a peasant girl approached us with a nosegay, which
she entreated me to buy. My fellow-traveller was impatient to obtain
it. I gave it to him, and, for an hour, all was neglected for the toy.
He touched the flowers one by one, viewed them attentively and
lovingly, as we do children whom we have known, and watched, and
loved from infancy--now caressing this, now smiling upon that. What
recollections did they summon in the mind of the destitute and
almost mindless creature? What pictures rose there?--pictures that
may never be excluded from the soul of man, however dim may burn the
intellectual light. His had been no happy boyhood, yet, in the
wilderness of his existence, there must have been vouchsafed to him
in mercy the few green spots that serve to attach to earth the most
afflicted and forlorn of her sad children. How natural for the
glimpses to revisit the broken heart, thus employed, thus roused and
animated by the light of heaven, rendering all things beautiful and
glad!

As we approached the village, my companion ceased to regard his
many-coloured friends with the same exclusive attention and unmixed
delight. His spirits sank--his joy fled. Clouds gathered across his
brow; he withdrew his hand from mine, and he sat for an hour,
brooding. He held the neglected nosegay before him, and plucked the
pretty leaves one by one--not conscious, I am sure, of what he did.
In a short time, every flower was destroyed, and lay in its
fragments before him. Then, as if stung by remorse for the cruel act,
or shaken by the heavy thoughts that pressed upon his brain, he
covered his pallid face, and groaned bitterly. What were those
thoughts? How connected with the resting-place towards which we were
hastening rapidly? My own anxiety became intense.

The village of Belton, situated near the mouth, and at the broadest
part of the river Parret, consisted of one long narrow street, and a
few houses scattered here and there on the small eminences which
sheltered it. The adjacent country was of the same character as that
which we had quitted--less luxuriant, perhaps, but still rich and
striking. We arrived at mid-day. I determined to alight at the inn
at which the coach put up, and to make my first enquiries there.
From the moment tha