e to the very brink
of a black, sullen river, show me, on the other side, shores unequal
with mound, monument, and tablet, standing up in a glimmer more hoary
than moonlight. "Necropolis!" she would whisper, pointing to the pale
piles, and add, "It contains a mansion prepared for you."

But my boyhood was lonely, parentless; uncheered by brother or sister;
and there was no marvel that, just as I rose to youth, a sorceress,
finding me lost in vague mental wanderings, with many affections and few
objects, glowing aspirations and gloomy prospects, strong desires and
slender hopes, should lift up her illusive lamp to me in the distance,
and lure me to her vaulted home of horrors. No wonder her spells
THEN had power; but NOW, when my course was widening, my prospect
brightening; when my affections had found a rest; when my desires,
folding wings, weary with long flight, had just alighted on the very lap
of fruition, and nestled there warm, content, under the caress of a soft
hand--why did hypochondria accost me now?

I repulsed her as one would a dreaded and ghastly concubine coming to
embitter a husband's heart toward his young bride; in vain; she kept her
sway over me for that night and the next day, and eight succeeding days.
Afterwards, my spirits began slowly to recover their tone; my appetite
returned, and in a fortnight I was well. I had gone about as usual all
the time, and had said nothing to anybody of what I felt; but I was glad
when the evil spirit departed from me, and I could again seek Frances,
and sit at her side, freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ONE fine, frosty Sunday in November, Frances and I took a long walk; we
made the tour of the city by the Boulevards; and, afterwards, Frances
being a little tired, we sat down on one of those wayside seats placed
under the trees, at intervals, for the accommodation of the weary.
Frances was telling me about Switzerland; the subject animated her;
and I was just thinking that her eyes spoke full as eloquently as her
tongue, when she stopped and remarked--

"Monsieur, there is a gentleman who knows you."

I looked up; three fashionably dressed men were just then
passing--Englishmen, I knew by their air and gait as well as by their
features; in the tallest of the trio I at once recognized Mr. Hunsden;
he was in the act of lifting his hat to Frances; afterwards, he made a
grimace at me, and passed on.

"Who is he?"

"A person I