A MEETING. 177 



purpose by strangulation. There was the fatal 

 black ring visible round the neck — ^though a 

 mere thread ; there were the bloodshot eyes pro- 

 truding from the sockets; and there, sorriest 

 sight of all, was the ghastly suicidal smile, last 

 relic of the laughter of despair ! But the knock- 

 ing would not leave off; and listening to its 

 character, we felt assured it came from the fist 

 of a friend. So we gathered up our slippered 

 feet from the rug, lamp in hand, stalked along 

 the lobbies, unchained and unlocked the oak 

 which our faithful night-porter, Somnus, had 

 sported — and lo! a figure, muffled up in a 

 cloak, and furred like a Russ, advanced famili- 

 arly into the hall, extended both hands, bade 

 God bless us, and pronounced, with somewhat 

 of a foreign accent, the name in which we and 

 the world rejoiced, ' Christopher ISTorth !' "We 

 were not slow in returning the hug fraternal, 

 for who was it, but the ' American woodsman ?* 

 — even Audubon himself — afresh from the Flo- 

 ridas, and breathing of the pure air of far-off 

 Labrador ! 



" Three years, and upwards, had fled since we 

 had taken farewell of the illustrious ornithologist 

 —on the same spot — at the same hour; and 

 there was something ghost-like in such return 

 of a dear friend from a distant region, almost as 

 from the land of spirits. It seemed as if the 



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