‘DEAR HEYWOOD--I am glad to find there is something you seem to care much about, outside business. Since Miss Blisset is leaving Stonegate, I could have no other tenant so desirable as you, and I assure you applications have not flowed in with the rapidity you seem to think. You are at liberty to take possession as soon as she vacates, which I suppose will be in a few days from now. It is not a residence which I should have exactly chosen out from amongst all others, but _chacun à son goût_.--Yours truly, ‘S. M.’ Myles carried this note about with him in his breast-pocket, as if it had been a magic talisman. He studiously adhered to his resolution not to go near Blake Street till the three days of which Brandon had spoken should have elapsed, but the shadow of the deserted house ‘haunted him like a passion’--a longing, intense and increasing, concentrated his thoughts upon that ‘house, and heath, and garden,’ the ‘phantoms’ of which had been ‘so dear to him erewhile.’ Not until the fourth evening after this interview with Brandon did he again take his way along the familiar street. It was even such an evening as that earlier one. The air was mild, the sun, now declining, had been bright--all nature smiled. It was growing dusk as he drew near the house. Why was his heart so low? Why had he such a great sensation of loneliness--of being cast adrift? Why did sad words of a sad song ring in his ears, and seem to be borne in whispers to him with each breath of wind-- ‘Away! away! to thy sad and silent home! Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth! Watch the dim shades, as like ghosts they go and come, And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.’ ‘The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall fall about thine head, The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet, But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead, Ere midnight’s frown and morning’s smile, ere thou and peace may meet.’ He felt the idea dreadfully prophetic; he felt as if that were the fate he had selected for himself, as he at last rested his arms upon the homely wicket of that lonesome abode, and looked towards the front of the house. He was prepared for closed shutters, melancholy wisps of straw and scraps of paper, doors bolted and barred--such as mark, with a brand not to be mistaken, the deserted house. What he beheld was an open door and an open window--the window to the right hand; he could see that the hall was stripped of its fittings, that the windows were curtainless, but the house was not empty--as yet, its hearth was not ‘desolated.’