rest of the landscape was softened down
into various degrees of shade, but all sufficiently distinct to display
the wild and fanciful outlines of cliff and crag, and the zigzag course
by which the young Rhine forced its passage through the rocky gorge.
Never had the scene looked in greater beauty,--never had every effect of
light and shadow been more happily distributed; and I watched him with
eagerness as he gazed out upon a picture which nothing in all Europe can
surpass. His countenance for a while remained calm, cold, and unmoved;
but at last he broke silence and said:

"This it was, then, that gave that dark coloring to all your letters to
me, Polly; and I half forgive you as I look at it. Gloom and barbarism
were never more closely united."

"Oh, Emile, you surely see something else in this grand picture?" cried
she, in a deprecating voice.

"Yes," said he, slowly, "I see poverty and misery; half-fed and
half-clad shepherds; figures of bandit rugged-ness and savagery. I see
these, and I feel that to live amongst them, even for a brief space,
would be to endure a horrid nightmare."

He moved away as he spoke, and sauntered slowly out of the room, down
the stairs, and into the street.

"Follow him, Jasper," cried Polly, eagerly; "he is dispirited and
depressed,--the journey has fatigued him, and he looks unwell. Go with
him; but do not speak till he addresses you."

I did not much fancy the duty, but I obeyed without a word. He seemed to
have quickened his pace as he descended; for when I reached the street,
I could detect his figure at some distance off in the twilight. He
walked rapidly on, and when he arrived at the bridge, he stopped, and,
leaning against the balustrade, looked up the valley.

"Are you weary of this, boy?" asked he, while he pointed up the glen.

I shook my head in dissent.

"Not tired of it," he exclaimed, "not heartsick of a life of dreary
monotony, without ambition, without an object! When I was scarcely older
than you I was a garde du corps; at eighteen I was in the household, and
mixing in all the splendor and gayety of Paris; before I was twenty I
fought the Duc de Valmy and wounded him. At the Longchamps of that same
year I drove in the carriage with La Marquese de Rochvilliers; and
all the world knows what success that was! Well, all these things have
passed away, and now we have a republic and the coarse pleasures and
coarser tastes of the 'canaille.' Men like me are not the