_her_,) I relinquished any further hope of penetrating
the mystery. Towards the close of my stay, and as my indisposition
wore away, the Sainsburys complimented me by giving one or two
dinner-parties, and these, with some morning visits and rambles with
the men I met at the house, served to draw my attention from the
matter; so that by the time I had fairly embarked on board the
_Blitzen_, bound for Helvoetsluys, the circumstances which had
occupied me so intently for the last fortnight were beginning to take
their place among the remembrances of the past.

CHAPTER III.

The passage to the Dutch coast, and my journey onward to Heidelberg,
were performed without interruption, and were unenlivened by any
incident that deserves relating. As it is not my intention to dwell
upon the vicissitudes of my career at the high school and university,
I shall merely say that, attending very little to the conventional and
arbitrary distinctions by which the students of Germany choose to
classify themselves--caring still less for _chores_, _brand-foxes_,
and _Burschenschafft_, and nothing at all for noisy suppers and their
drunken _refrain_--

"Toujours fidele et sans souci
C'est l'ordre du Crambambuli!"--

I very earnestly bent myself to second the intentions of my father.
For three years, diligently and indefatigably, I pursued a course of
severe application to long-neglected studies, which enabled me fairly
to redeem the time I had squandered in early youth. Nor is it unworthy
of remark, that, as is often the case with imaginative people, the
temptations which had appeared so inviting when beheld from a
distance, failed in their powers of allurement on a nearer approach.
The Spirit of the Brocken and I made no advances in intimacy, and I
rode through the Black Forest without a desire to enroll myself
amongst its freebooters.

The fourth year of my stay at Heidelberg was drawing to a close, when,
in pursuance of arrangements entered into with my father, I returned
to England. Upon reaching London, I drove to my kind friends at
Walworth, where I experienced the same ready welcome as before,
accompanied by many congratulations upon my academical success, of
which they had heard from time to time from my family. It was the
middle of winter--the second or third week in December--when London
exhibits all that joyous bustle of plenteousness and good cheer,
amidst which its citizens celebrate the festival of Christmas. As Mrs