94 HANNAH DYEB. 



each lane, and every alley green, 



Dingle, or bushy dell , 



And every bosky bourn, from side to side 

 My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood.' 



And if I gazed, as I often did, on the purple boundary of the 

 far horizon, and wantoned in my dreams, I felt that I was happy, 

 — it was a positive sensation — my thoughts were feelings. Years 

 have passed" away, my heart has been hardened, I have gained 

 knowledge by suifering, I have passed into other lands, and beheld 

 the children of men engrossed alike in their nefarious projects ; but 

 with all the varieties of the species, under every clime, the heart is 

 still the same. 



After many years absence I visited the gay town of , with 



its palaces and villas, terraces and gardens, walks and embowered 

 groves — a most gorgeous combination of nature and art, a scene so 

 full of life that it might cheat even death himself, in whose bright 

 sky music floated like a native elemental breath. From scene to 

 scene I wandered — associations crowded round my mind — I drew 

 myself aside, and wept. I was alone, a stranger on my native earth ! 



I fled the refined sensuality of groves and walks, and almost im- 

 perceptibly pursued my way towards a spot where at least I might 

 undisturbed indulge my sadness. The day was fading into the 

 purple light of evening — it was a calm delicious hour, hushed 

 and still; the grey-coated Gnats hummed round me as I enter- 

 ed a large field which, though now sadly deformed by improve^ 

 ments, still encompasses one side of Charlton. Where once was 

 only a narrow path across fifty acres of ploughed land, formed by the 

 transit of the villagers, I found a long, white, stony road. Luckily the 

 old stile at the end was in view, or I should have returned, sick 

 with improvements, afraid that not even the hills and their Gorse- 

 blossoms were left untouched. Suddenly I remembered a low 

 thatched cottage across the lane beyond the field — it was still there : 

 I fetched breath — there had lived Hannah Dyer ! I quicken- 

 ed my pace as I uttered her name : is she alive ? perhaps married, 

 perhaps poor — miserable. Hannah Dyer ! — with that name how 

 many associations of my young life were conjured up ! The most 

 eventful period of my existence was a blank, the stirring events which 

 had transpired in the years of manhood were all forgotten as the 

 jarring chaos of a dream ; I awoke as from a feverish delirium — I 

 was a boy again. 



Hannah Dyer ! she was the only child of her mother, and " she 

 was a widow" whose decline of life, with all her sorrows — and they 



