Our lives were not like the lives of other people: we had no kindred, no associations, no stir in the sad stagnation of day and night. Time seemed to be mantling over us, and the breath of heaven to be becoming less and less perceptible in our dreariness. Astræa was like a person who was dying from the heart; and with all the fortitude I could bring to my help, I felt it no easy task to lift myself out of the dismal depression which occasionally seized upon me. At last we agreed that our scheme of traveling about had disappointed our expectations, and that, after all, London was the best of all places for people who sought either of the extremes of society or seclusion. And so to London we forthwith repaired. VII. The heart of the town, or the suburbs? The question was speedily decided in favor of a small detached house, not very far from the Regent's Park. We had the whole park for a pleasure-ground, a little scrap of verdure of our own, and an open space and airy situation to regale our lungs in. We entered upon our new locality with sensations of security we had felt nowhere else. We seemed to have left behind us the gloom and terror that had been so long dogging our footsteps. Even Astræa brightened, and grew better; her fretfulness was disappearing, and a tone of contentment and cheerfulness supervening upon it. We were each of us more free in our movements, and the dread of observation which had so long kept us in a state of perpetual alarm, was gradually passing away. But what had become all this time of the vengeance of the dwarf? Had he abandoned his great plan of revenge? Had he thought better of it, and, finding that Astræa was immovable, addressed himself to some more sensible pursuit than that of plaguing us? I sometimes touched upon the subject to Astræa, but could not extract from her what her suspicions were. She did not like to talk about him. She seemed to be ruled by a superstitious fear of reviving the topic. It was like the old wives' adage, "Talk of the devil, and he'll appear!"