being
open, he had put aside the curtain, and was soliciting my attention with
the end of his cane.

"Ah!" said he, "is it you? Well, I _thought_ it was you, though I wasn't
sure. I won't interrupt you. Here are the proofs of number thirteen;
you'll find something glorious in that--just the thing for you--don't
forget me next week--good-bye. I'll see you again in a day or two."

I shall not cast a gloom over my readers by dwelling upon my feelings.
Surely, surely, there are sympathetic bosoms among them. To them I
appeal. I said nothing. Few could have detected any thing violent or
extraordinary in my manner, as I took the proofs from the end of the
little old gentleman's cane, and laid them calmly on the table. I did
not write any more about "virtue" that morning. It was out of the
question. Indeed, my mind scarcely recovered from the shock for several
days.

When my nerves are in any way irritated, I find a walk in the woods a
soothing and agreeable sedative. Accordingly, the next afternoon, I
wound up the affairs of the day earlier than usual, and set out for a
ramble through the groves and along the shore of Hoboken. I was soon on
one of the abrupt acclivities, where, through the deep rich foliage of
the intertwining branches, I overlooked the Hudson, the wide bay, and
the superb, steepled city, stretching in a level line of magnificence
upon the shining waters, softened with an overhanging canopy of thin
haze. I gazed at the picture, and contemplated the rivalry of nature
with art, striving which could most delight. As my eye moved from ship
to ship, from island to island, and from shore to shore--now reposing on
the distant blue, then revelling in the nearer luxuriance of the forest
green, I heard a step in the grass, and a little ragged fellow came up
and asked me if I was the editor of the ----. I was about replying to
him affirmatively, when his words arrested my attention. "A little
gentleman with a hat and cane," he said, "had been inquiring for the
editor, &c., at the adjoining hotel, and had given him sixpence to run
up into the woods and find him." I rushed precipitately, as I thought,
into the thickest recesses of the wood. The path, however, being very
circuitous, I suddenly came into it, and nearly ran against a person
whom it needed no second glance to recognize, although his back was
luckily toward me. The hat, the breeches, the cane, were enough. If not,
part of a red-covered pamphlet, sticking o