dear. Merely from habit, I again repaired to the White Horse, and
concluded my nineteenth natal day in incertitude, solitude, and misery.

To Stickenham--yes, I would go there immediately. But the resolve gave
no exulting throb to my bosom.

I went to that spot so consecrated to my memory by bright skies and
brighter faces; the spot where I had so often urged the flying ball and
marshalled the mimic army--it was there that I stood; and I asked of a
miserable half-starved woman, "where was the play-ground of my youth?"
and she showed me a "brick-field."

I walked a few steps further, and asked for the school-house of my
happiest days--and one pointed out to me a brawling ale-house. It was a
bitter change. I asked of another where was now my old light-hearted,
deep-learned, French schoolmaster, Monsieur Cherfeuil. He had gone back
to France. The _emigres_ had been recalled by Napoleon.

There was one other question that I dreaded, yet burned to ask--I need
not state how fearful it was to me, since it was to learn the fate of
her whom I had honoured, and loved, and hailed, as my mother--the
beautiful and the kind Mrs Cherfeuil. I conjectured that she, too, had
gone to France with her husband, and the idea was painful to me.

"There have been great alterations here, my good girl," said I to a
young person whom I afterwards met.

"Very great, indeed, sir,--they have ruined father and mother."

"Your name, my dear, is Susan Archer."

"Bless me, so it is, sir!"

"And you seem a very intelligent little girl, indeed."

"Yes, I have had a good deal of book-learning, but all that is past and
gone now. When Mrs Cherfeuil lived in that house, she took care that
we should always have a home of our own, fire in the grate, and a loaf
in the cupboard--she had me sent to school--but now she is gone!"

"Gone!--where?--with her husband?"

"Don't you know, sir," said she, with a quiet solemnity, that made me
shudder with dreadful anticipations. "If you will come with me, I will
show you."

I dared not ask the awful question, "Is she dead?" I took my gentle
guide by the hand, and suffered her to lead me slowly through the
village. Neither of us spoke. We had almost attained to the end of the
hamlet, when my sad guide gently plucked me by the arm to turn down to
the right.

"No," said I, tremulously, "that is not the way; we must go forward.
That lane leads to the churchyard."

"And to Mrs Cherfeuil."

"Go on