running back and forth, attending
to his baggage; but he himself took no thought, and felt no more
responsibility than if he had been a helpless child. He half regretted
that his own wish had prevailed, and was inclined to hold his friend
responsible for it; and still he had not energy enough to protest now
when the journey seemed inevitable. His heart still clung to the place
which held the corpse of his ruined life, as a man may cling to the spot
which hides his beloved dead.

About two weeks later Halfdan landed in Norway. He was half reluctant to
leave the steamer, and the land of his birth excited no emotion in his
breast. He was but conscious of a dim regret that he was so far away
from Edith. At last, however, he betook himself to a hotel, where he
spent the afternoon sitting with half-closed eyes at a window, watching
listlessly the drowsy slow-pulsed life which dribbled languidly through
the narrow thoroughfare. The noisy uproar of Broadway chimed remotely
in his ears, like the distant roar of a tempest-tossed sea, and what had
once been a perpetual annoyance was now a sweet memory. How often with
Edith at his side had he threaded his way through the surging crowds
that pour, on a fine afternoon, in an unceasing current up and down the
street between Union and Madison Squares. How friendly, and sweet, and
gracious, Edith had been at such times; how fresh her voice, how witty
and animated her chance remarks when they stopped to greet a passing
acquaintance; and, above all, how inspiring the sight of her heavenly
beauty. Now that was all past. Perhaps he should never see Edith again.

The next day he sauntered through the city, meeting some old friends,
who all seemed changed and singularly uninteresting. They were all
engaged or married, and could talk of nothing but matrimony, and
their prospects of advancement in the Government service. One had
an influential uncle who had been a chum of the present minister of
finance; another based his hopes of future prosperity upon the family
connections of his betrothed, and a third was waiting with a patient
perseverance, worthy of a better cause, for the death or resignation of
an antiquated chef-de-bureau, which, according to the promise of some
mighty man, would open a position for him in the Department of Justice.
All had the most absurd theories about American democracy, and indulged
freely in prophecies of coming disasters; but about their own government
they had