was borne away, and he felt he was lengthening a chain linked to his heart which pulled him back—­to what, and to whom?  It was a vision—­a dream with his eyes open:  indistinct, unembodied, a very shadow; still it floated about in his imagination, and he was sad.  He was in the city—­the great Sodom of the West.  He was an object of wonder to every curious eye.  His wild appearance and gentle manner comported illy, and the thoughtless crowd followed him.  Attired now as a civilized being, and feeling that the vagrant life of a savage must lead to grief, he called to mind the tear which stole from the rheumy eyes of the old trapper as he narrated his adventures in the wilderness, and cursed the hour he ever wandered from his home.  His life had been a continual danger, his hope had been always to return to his early attachments; but the chain of habit fettered him, and he had learned to love the wild, solitary life, because of its excitements and its dangers.  Should he, like this man, come to love the solitude and silence of the wilderness, and find companionship only with his traps and guns?

His resolution was taken, he would renew the strife with the world and go back to busy life.  His companion of many dangers and long marches was going to Mexico in search of new adventures.  They are alone upon the broad levee—­busy men are hurrying to and fro, little heeding the two—­a small schooner is dropping and sheeting home her sails; she is up for Tampico, and Gilmanot goes in her; she is throwing off her fastenings.  “All aboard,” cries the swarthy, whiskered captain—­a grasp of the hand—­no word was spoken—­it was warm and sincere, there was no need of words—­each understood that last warm farewell pressure.  She is sweeping around Slaughter-house Point—­only the topmasts are visible now—­and now she is gone.  The young adventurer stands alone and the crowd goes hurrying on.  How many in desolation of heart have stood alone and unheeded by the busy, passing multitude upon that broad levee!  How many tears of misery have moistened its shell-covered summit, when thinking of friends far, far away they should never see again, and when hope had been rooted from the heart!

He wandered to the great square, now so beautifully ornamented with shrubs and flowers which love the sun and the South’s fat soil, growing and blooming about the bronze representation of the loved hero who had been her shield and savior in the hour of her peril, Andrew Jackson.  Then there were a few trees only, and beneath these, here and there, a rude rural seat or bench.  The old, gray cathedral was frowning on the world’s sins, so rife around her; and the great, naked square and the mighty muddy river which was hurrying away to the sea.  To the most thoughtless will come reflection, and the sweetest face is mellowed by sorrow.  Here under these trees, in the midst of a great city, came to the young adventurer reflection and sighing sorrow.  His mother and father came up in memory; the home of childhood,