e result was
as if I had gnawed a file to satisfy hunger, or drank brine to quench
thirst.

My hour of torment was the post-hour. Unfortunately, I knew it too
well, and tried as vainly as assiduously to cheat myself of that
knowledge; dreading the rack of expectation, and the sick collapse of
disappointment which daily preceded and followed upon that
well-recognised ring.

I suppose animals kept in cages, and so scantily fed as to be always
upon the verge of famine, await their food as I awaited a letter.
Oh!--to speak truth, and drop that tone of a false calm which long to
sustain, outwears nature's endurance--I underwent in those seven weeks
bitter fears and pains, strange inward trials, miserable defections of
hope, intolerable encroachments of despair. This last came so near me
sometimes that her breath went right through me. I used to feel it like
a baleful air or sigh, penetrate deep, and make motion pause at my
heart, or proceed only under unspeakable oppression. The letter--the
well-beloved letter--would not come; and it was all of sweetness in
life I had to look for.

In the very extremity of want, I had recourse again, and yet again, to
the little packet in the case--the five letters. How splendid that
month seemed whose skies had beheld the rising of these five stars! It
was always at night I visited them, and not daring to ask every evening
for a candle in the kitchen, I bought a wax taper and matches to light
it, and at the study-hour stole up to the dormitory and feasted on my
crust from the Barmecide's loaf. It did not nourish me: I pined on it,
and got as thin as a shadow: otherwise I was not ill.

Reading there somewhat late one evening, and feeling that the power to
read was leaving me--for the letters from incessant perusal were losing
all sap and significance: my gold was withering to leaves before my
eyes, and I was sorrowing over the disillusion--suddenly a quick
tripping foot ran up the stairs. I knew Ginevra Fanshawe's step: she
had dined in town that afternoon; she was now returned, and would come
here to replace her shawl, &c. in the wardrobe.

Yes: in she came, dressed in bright silk, with her shawl falling from
her shoulders, and her curls, half-uncurled in the damp of night,
drooping careless and heavy upon her neck. I had hardly time to
recasket my treasures and lock them up when she was at my side her
humour seemed none of the best.

"It has been a stupid evening: they are stupid p