from the cold and pure air without, to this noxious element,
I found it difficult to breathe. A moment, however, reconciled me to my
situation, and I looked anxiously round to discover some face which I
knew.

Almost every mouth was furnished with a cigar, and every hand with a
glass of porter. Conversation, carried on with much emphasis of tone and
gesture, was not wanting. Sundry groups, in different corners, were
beguiling the tedious hours at whist. Others, unemployed, were strolling
to and fro, and testified their vacancy of thought and care by humming
or whistling a tune.

I fostered the hope that my prognostics had deceived me. This hope was
strengthened by reflecting that the billet received was written in a
different hand from that of my friend. Meanwhile I continued my search.
Seated on a bench, silent and aloof from the crowd, his eyes fixed upon
the floor, and his face half concealed by his hand, a form was at length
discovered which verified all my conjectures and fears. Carlton was he.

My heart drooped and my tongue faltered at this sight. I surveyed him
for some minutes in silence. At length, approaching the bench on which
he sat, I touched his hand and awakened him from his reverie. He looked
up. A momentary gleam of joy and surprise was succeeded by a gloom
deeper than before.

It was plain that my friend needed consolation. He was governed by an
exquisite sensibility to disgrace. He was impatient of constraint. He
shrunk, with fastidious abhorrence, from the contact of the vulgar and
the profligate. His constitution was delicate and feeble. Impure airs,
restraint from exercise, unusual aliment, unwholesome or incommodious
accommodations, and perturbed thoughts, were, at any time, sufficient to
generate disease and to deprive him of life.

To these evils he was now subjected. He had no money wherewith to
purchase food. He had been dragged hither in the morning. He had not
tasted a morsel since his entrance. He had not provided a bed on which
to lie; or inquired in what room, or with what companions, the night was
to be spent.

Fortitude was not among my friend's qualities. He was more prone to
shrink from danger than encounter it, and to yield to the flood rather
than sustain it; but it is just to observe that his anguish, on the
present occasion, arose not wholly from selfish considerations. His
parents were dead, and two sisters were dependent on him for support.
One of these was nearly of his