ver brought home to my own mind the utter
destitution of my state; but now, there. I stood, realizing to myself
the condition of one of those we read of in our newspapers as having
received five shillings from the poor-box, while D 490 is deputed to
"make inquiries after him at his lodgings," and learn particulars of his
life and habits. I could have borne being sent to prison. I could
have endured any amount of severity, so long as I revolted against its
injustice; but the sense of being an object of actual charity crushed me
utterly, and I could nearly have cried with vexation.

By degrees the crowd thinned off, and I found myself sit-, ting alone
beside the table where I had dined, with the hateful old waiter, as
though standing sentinel over me.

"Who is this person," asked I, haughtily, "who, with an indelicate
generosity, has presumed to interfere with the concerns of a stranger?"

"The gracious nobleman who paid for your dinner is now eating his own at
No. 8," said the old monster with a grin.

"I will call upon him when he has dined," said I, transfixing the
wretch with a look so stern, as to make rejoinder impossible; and then,
throwing my plaid wrapper and my knapsack on a table near, I strolled
out into the street.

Lindau is a picturesque old place, as it stands rising, as it were, out
of the very waters of the Lake of Constance, and the great mountain of
the Sentis, with its peak of six thousand feet high, is a fine object
in the distance; while the gorge of the Upper Rhine offers many a grand
effect of Alpine scenery, not the less striking when looked at with a
setting sun, which made the foreground more massive and the hill tops
golden; and yet I carried that in my heart which made the whole picture
as dark and dreary as Poussin's Deluge. It was all very beautiful.
There, was the snow-white summit, reflected in the still water of the
lake; there, the rich wood, browned with autumn, and now tinted with a
golden glory, richer again; there were the white-sailed boats, asleep
on the calm surface, streaked with the variegated light of the clouds
above, and it was peaceful as it was picturesque. But do what I could,
I could not enjoy it, and all because I had lost my purse, just as
if certain fragments of a yellow metal the more or the less, ought to
obscure eyesight, lull the sense of hearing, and make a man's whole
existence miserable. "And after all," thought I, "Catinka will be here
this evening, or to