ame--Amandus!
Amandus! at every town and city, sitting down forlorn at the gate--Has
Amandus!--has my Amandus enter'd?--till,--going round, and round, and
round the world--chance unexpected bringing them at the same moment of
the night, though by different ways, to the gate of Lyons, their native
city, and each in well-known accents calling out aloud,

Is Amandus / Is my Amanda still alive?

they fly into each other's arms, and both drop down dead for joy.

There is a soft aera in every gentle mortal's life, where such a story
affords more pabulum to the brain, than all the Frusts, and Crusts, and
Rusts of antiquity, which travellers can cook up for it.

--'Twas all that stuck on the right side of the cullender in my own, of
what Spon and others, in their accounts of Lyons, had strained into it;
and finding, moreover, in some Itinerary, but in what God knows--That
sacred to the fidelity of Amandus and Amanda, a tomb was built without
the gates, where, to this hour, lovers called upon them to attest their
truths--I never could get into a scrape of that kind in my life,
but this tomb of the lovers would, somehow or other, come in at the
close--nay such a kind of empire had it establish'd over me, that I
could seldom think or speak of Lyons--and sometimes not so much as see
even a Lyons-waistcoat, but this remnant of antiquity would present
itself to my fancy; and I have often said in my wild way of running
on--tho' I fear with some irreverence--'I thought this shrine (neglected
as it was) as valuable as that of Mecca, and so little short, except in
wealth, of the Santa Casa itself, that some time or other, I would go a
pilgrimage (though I had no other business at Lyons) on purpose to pay
it a visit.'

In my list, therefore, of Videnda at Lyons, this, tho' last,--was not,
you see, least; so taking a dozen or two of longer strides than usual
cross my room, just whilst it passed my brain, I walked down calmly
into the basse cour, in order to sally forth; and having called for my
bill--as it was uncertain whether I should return to my inn, I had paid
it--had moreover given the maid ten sous, and was just receiving the
dernier compliments of Monsieur Le Blanc, for a pleasant voyage down the
Rhone--when I was stopped at the gate--

Chapter 4.XIII.

--'Twas by a poor ass, who had just turned in with a couple of large
panniers upon his back, to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and
cabbage-leaves; and stood dubious, w