nded.

Although, to restless and ardent minds, morning may be the fitting
season for exertion and activity, it is not always at that time that
hope is strongest or the spirit most sanguine and buoyant. In trying
and doubtful positions, youth, custom, a steady contemplation of
the difficulties which surround us, and a familiarity with them,
imperceptibly diminish our apprehensions and beget comparative
indifference, if not a vague and reckless confidence in some relief,
the means or nature of which we care not to foresee. But when we come,
fresh, upon such things in the morning, with that dark and silent gap
between us and yesterday; with every link in the brittle chain of
hope, to rivet afresh; our hot enthusiasm subdued, and cool calm reason
substituted in its stead; doubt and misgiving revive. As the traveller
sees farthest by day, and becomes aware of rugged mountains and
trackless plains which the friendly darkness had shrouded from his sight
and mind together, so, the wayfarer in the toilsome path of human life
sees, with each returning sun, some new obstacle to surmount, some new
height to be attained. Distances stretch out before him which, last
night, were scarcely taken into account, and the light which gilds
all nature with its cheerful beams, seems but to shine upon the weary
obstacles that yet lie strewn between him and the grave.

So thought Nicholas, when, with the impatience natural to a situation
like his, he softly left the house, and, feeling as though to remain in
bed were to lose most precious time, and to be up and stirring were
in some way to promote the end he had in view, wandered into London;
perfectly well knowing that for hours to come he could not obtain speech
with Madeline, and could do nothing but wish the intervening time away.

And, even now, as he paced the streets, and listlessly looked round on
the gradually increasing bustle and preparation for the day, everything
appeared to yield him some new occasion for despondency. Last night, the
sacrifice of a young, affectionate, and beautiful creature, to such
a wretch, and in such a cause, had seemed a thing too monstrous to
succeed; and the warmer he grew, the more confident he felt that some
interposition must save her from his clutches. But now, when he thought
how regularly things went on, from day to day, in the same unvarying
round; how youth and beauty died, and ugly griping age lived tottering
on; how crafty avarice grew rich, and