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 North!’ We 
were not slow in returning the hug fraternal, 
for who was it, but the ‘ American woodsman ?” 
—even Audubon himself—fresh from the Flo 
ridas, and breathing of the pure air of far-off 
Labrador ! 
“Three years, and upwards, had fled since w ‘ 
had taken farewell of the illustrious ornithologi-s 
—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 
M 
