"He is coming home immediately, dear father; perhaps he may be here to- morrow," cried Madeline abruptly; "think of that, Ellinor! Ah! and he writes in spirits!"--and the poor girl clapped her hands delightedly, as the colour danced joyously over her cheek and neck. "I am glad to hear it," quoth Lester; "we shall have him at last beat even Ellinor in gaiety!" "That may easily be," sighed Ellinor to herself, as she glided past them into the house, and sought her own chamber. CHAPTER V. A REFLECTION NEW AND STRANGE.--THE STREETS OF LONDON.--A GREAT MAN'S LIBRARY.--A CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE STUDENT AND AN ACQUAINTANCE OF THE READER'S.--ITS RESULT. Rollo. Ask for thyself. Lat. What more can concern me than this? --The Tragedy of Rollo. It was an evening in the declining autumn of 1758; some public ceremony had occurred during the day, and the crowd, which it had assembled was only now gradually lessening, as the shadows darkened along the streets. Through this crowd, self-absorbed as usual--with them--not one of them-- Eugene Aram slowly wound his uncompanioned way. What an incalculable field of dread and sombre contemplation is opened to every man who, with his heart disengaged from himself, and his eyes accustomed to the sharp observance of his tribe, walks through the streets of a great city! What a world of dark and troublous secrets in the breast of every one who hurries by you! Goethe has said somewhere, that each of us, the best as the worst, hides within him something--some feeling, some remembrance that, if known, would make you hate him. No doubt the saying is exaggerated; but still, what a gloomy and profound sublimity in the idea!--what a new insight it gives into the hearts of the common herd!-- with what a strange interest it may inspire us for the humblest, the tritest passenger that shoulders us in the great thoroughfare of life! One of the greatest pleasures in the world is to walk alone, and at night, (while they are yet crowded,) through the long lamplit streets of this huge metropolis. There, even more than in the silence of woods and fields, seems to me the source of endless, various meditation.