like an incarnation of the Will-o’-wisp.  I strolled up and down for half an hour, wrapped in an olive great-coat, and having a green silk umbrella over my head.  It was well I chanced to be so well fortified against the weather; for had it been otherwise, I must have been drenched to the skin.  Where I went I know not, so deeply was my mind wound up in its various melancholy cogitations.  This, however, I do know, that, after striking against sundry lamp-posts, and overturning a few old women in my fits of absence, I found myself precisely at the point from which I set out, viz. at the door of Julia’s aunt’s husband’s house.

I paused for a moment, uncertain whether to enter, and, in the meantime, turning my eyes to the window, where, upon the white blind, I beheld the enormous shadow of a human being.  My flesh crept with horror on witnessing this apparition, for I knew it to be the shadow of the Man-Mountain—­the dim reflection of Mr. Tims.  No other human being could cast such a shade.  Its proportions were magnificent, and filled up the whole breadth of the window-screen; nay, the shoulders shot away latterly beyond its utmost limits, and were lost in space, having apparently nothing whereon to cast their mighty image.  On beholding this vast shade, my mind was filled with a thousand exalted thoughts.

I paused at the door for sometime, uncertain whether to enter; at last my mind was made up, and I knocked, resolved to encounter the Man-Mountain a second time, and, if possible, recover the lost glances of Julia.  On entering the dining-room, I found an accession to the company in the person of our landlord, who sat opposite to Mr. Tims, listening to some facetious story, which the latter gentleman seemed in the act of relating.  He had come home during my absence, and, like his wife and her niece, appeared to be fascinated by the eloquence and humour of his stout friend.  At least, so I judged, for he merely recognised my presence by a slight bow, and devoted the whole of his attention to the owner of the mighty shadow.  Julia and her aunt were similarly occupied, and I was more neglected than ever.

Perhaps the reader may think that there was something ludicrous in the idea of such a man being in love.  Not at all—­the notion was sublime; almost as sublime as his shadow—­almost as overwhelming as his person.  Conceive the Man-Mountain playing the amiable with such a delicate young creature like Julia.  Conceive him falling on his knees before her—­pressing her delicate hand, and “popping the question,” while his large round eyes shed tears of affection and suspense, and his huge sides shook with emotion!  Conceive him enduring all the pangs of love-sickness, never telling his love; “concealment, like a worm in the bud, preying upon his damask cheek,” while his hard-hearted mistress stood disdainfully by, “like pity on a monument, smiling at grief.”  Above all, conceive him taking the lover’s leap—­say