He had stopped at a farm-house, and asked if he could be lodged for the night just at eight o'clock. He found the occupants preparing to retire, and, though they made him welcome, and entertained him hospitably, yet he could not help perceiving that he gave them additional trouble; and, when he found that they would not receive payment for it, he decided that it was a false position in which he had placed himself, and that nothing but necessity should induce him to adopt the same course again. He lacked the cheerful assurance with which some men can make themselves at home anywhere, without a suspicion that others are not equally pleased with their society. The next morning, feeling rather footsore and unrefreshed, after his unusual exertions of the day before, Frederick took advantage of a stage that was going in the same direction with himself, and rode to the village in which he had decided to pass the night. Here he amused himself by wandering about the beautiful and romantic country around, and returning when he was weary to the country inn. This he found so much easier and pleasanter a mode of travelling than the fatiguing one of walking, that he went almost to the foot of the Green Mountains before he thought of resuming it. Then, ashamed of his faint-heartedness, he left the stage, and, shouldering his valise again, he walked for some hours quite vigorously. He entered the little village of Hillsdale just as the moon was rising, and, after a supper such as none but a pedestrian could eat, he strolled out to enjoy the loveliness of the summer evening and his own meditations, by the banks of a clear and rapid stream, the beauty of which had attracted his notice as he was entering the village. He walked for some distance up its banks, and then, throwing himself down on a grassy mound, he lay in a sort of musing trance, watching the moonlight shimmering on the flashing waters, and listening to the tinkling music of their flow, while his imagination was busily engaged in inventing deeds of heroism and chivalric daring, by which he fancied himself proving to the lady of his love that he was worthy of one so noble and high-souled. Midnight stole unawares upon him while thus engaged, and, with reluctant steps, he sought the Eagle Hotel, where he had decided to pass the night. A decision not difficult to arrive at, as there was no other public house in the place. The next morning he discovered, to his great annoyance, that he had lost his purse in his evening ramble. He sought for it in vain; and when the landlord, conjecturing from his movements that he was about to depart, asked him if he would like his bill, he could not help a guilty conscious feeling stealing over him as he tried to answer, in an off-hand way, that he intended to pass a few days in Hillsdale.