see him now, stealing away from the
haunts of men,

'With even step and musing gait,'--

across the quiet fields, or into the woods, whence he was certain not to
re-appear till night-fall. Ah! he was a strange and solitary being, but
full of genius, and promise of bright things hereafter. I have often
heard since of his fame as a scholar, but could never learn where he
lived or what was now his mode of life. Is he yet married?"

"Not yet, I believe; but he is not now so absolutely poor as you
describe him to have been then, though certainly far from rich."

"Yes, yes, I remember that he received a legacy from a relation shortly
before he left Knaresborough. He had very delicate health at that time:
has he grown stronger with increasing years?"

"He does not complain of ill health. And pray, was he then of the same
austere and blameless habits of life that he now professes?"

"Nothing could be so faultless as his character appeared; the passions
of youth--(ah! I was a wild fellow at his age,) never seemed to venture
near one.

'Quem casto erudit docta Minerva sinu.'

Well, I am surprised he has not married. We scholars, Sir, fall in love
with abstractions, and fancy the first woman we see is--Sir, let us
drink the ladies."

The next day Walter, having resolved to set out for Knaresborough,
directed his course towards that town; he thought it yet possible that
he might, by strict personal inquiry, continue the clue that Elmore's
account had, to present appearance, broken. The pursuit in which he
was engaged, combined, perhaps, with the early disappointment to his
affections, had given a grave and solemn tone to a mind naturally ardent
and elastic. His character acquired an earnestness and a dignity from
late events; and all that once had been hope within him, deepened into
thought. As now, on a gloomy and clouded day he pursued his course
along a bleak and melancholy road, his mind was filled with that dark
presentiment--that shadow from the coming event, which superstition
believes the herald of the more tragic discoveries, or the more
fearful incidents of life; he felt steeled, and prepared for some dread
denouement,--to a journey to which the hand of Providence seemed to
conduct his steps; and he looked on the shroud that Time casts over all
beyond the present moment with the same intense and painful resolve with
which, in the tragic representations of life, we await the drawing up
of the curtai