tations, such as they were, till evening--Trevanion having taken upon
him to apologize for our absence at Mrs. Bingham's dejeune, and O'Leary
being fast asleep in his own apartments.

CHAPTER XXXV.

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS--A FIRST LOVE.

I know of no sensations so very nearly alike, as those felt on awaking
after very sudden and profuse loss of blood, and those resulting from a
large dose of opium. The dizziness, the confusion, and the abstraction
at first, gradually yielding, as the senses became clearer, to a vague
and indistinct consciousness; then the strange mistiness, in which fact
and fiction are wrapped up--the confounding of persons, and places, and
times, not so as to embarrass and annoy--for the very debility you feel
subdues all irritation--but rather to present a panoramic picture of odd
and incongruous events more pleasing than otherwise.

Of the circumstances by which I was thus brought to a sick couch, I had
not even the most vague recollection--the faces and the dress of all
those I had lately seen were vividly before me; but how, and for what
purpose I knew not. Something in their kindness and attention had left
an agreeable impression upon my mind, and without being able, or even
attempting to trace it, I felt happy in the thought. While thus the
"hour before" was dim and indistinct, the events of years past were
vividly and brightly pictured before me; and strange, too, the more
remote the period, the more did it seem palpable and present to my
imagination. For so it is, there is in memory a species of mental
long-sightedness, which, though blind to the object close beside you, can
reach the blue mountains and the starry skies, which lie full many a
league away. Is this a malady? or is it rather a providential gift to
alleviate the tedious hours of the sick bed, and cheer the lonely
sufferer, whose thoughts are his only realm?

My school-boy days, in all their holiday excitement; the bank where I had
culled the earliest cowslips of the year; the clear but rapid stream,
where days long I have watched the speckled trout, as they swam
peacefully beneath, or shook their bright fins in the gay sunshine; the
gorgeous dragon-fly that played above the water, and dipped his bright
wings in its ripple--they were all before me. And then came the thought
of school itself, with its little world of boyish cares and emulations;
the early imbibed passion for success; the ardent longing for
superiority;