the air and scene, new life seemed to course through his veins; his step
seemed to grow as elastic as in the old days of their bitter but hopeful
struggle for fortune, when he had gayly returned from his weekly tramp
to Boomville laden with the scant provision procured by their scant
earnings and dying credit. Those were the days when HER living image
still inspired his heart with faith and hope; when everything was yet
possible to youth and love, and before the irony of fate had given
him fortune with one hand only to withdraw HER with the other. It
was strange and cruel that coming back from his quest of rest and
forgetfulness he should find only these youthful and sanguine dreams
revive with his reviving vigor. He walked on more hurriedly as if to
escape them, and was glad to be diverted by one or two carryalls and
char-a-bancs filled with gayly dressed pleasure parties--evidently
visitors to Hymettus--which passed him on the road. Here were the first
signs of change. He recalled the train of pack-mules of the old days,
the file of pole-and-basket carrying Chinese, the squaw with the papoose
strapped to her shoulder, or the wandering and foot-sore prospector, who
were the only wayfarers he used to meet. He contrasted their halts and
friendly greetings with the insolent curiosity or undisguised contempt
of the carriage folk, and smiled as he thought of the warning of the
blacksmith. But this did not long divert him; he found himself again
returning to his previous thought. Indeed, the face of a young girl in
one of the carriages had quite startled him with its resemblance to an
old memory of his lost love as he saw her,--her frail, pale elegance
encompassed in laces as she leaned back in her drive through Fifth
Avenue, with eyes that lit up and became transfigured only as he
passed. He tried to think of his useless quest in search of her last
resting-place abroad; how he had been baffled by the opposition of her
surviving relations, already incensed by the thought that her decline
had been the effect of her hopeless passion. He tried to recall the few
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