I know not why it is, but somehow the heart, by long association with particular objects, forms as it were a friendship even with things inanimate, when they have been the silent witnesses of our hopes or our happiness; they form a link between us and past enjoyment, a sort of landmark for memory to guide us back to happy recollections; and to quit them, like every other sort of parting, has no small degree of pain. We are apt, too, to calculate all that may happen before we see them again, and the knowledge of the innumerable multitude of human miseries, from amongst which Fortune may choose, gives generally to such anticipations a gloomy hue. Looking back upon the towers of St. Germain, De Blenau felt as if he were parting from Pauline, and parting from her for a long and indefinite time; and his heart sickened in spite of all the gay dreams to which his liberation had at first given birth. Who is there that even when futurity is decked in the brightest colours which probability can lend to hope--when youth, and health, and ardent imagination combine to guarantee all the promises of life--who is there, that even then does not feel the painful influence of parting from any thing that is loved? Who is there in the world, the summer of whose bosom is so eternal, that at such moments, dark imaginings will not cloud the warmest sunshine of their heart, and cast a gloomy uncertain shadow on the most glowing scenes expectation can display? Just so De Blenau. Fancy presented to his mind a thousand forebodings of evil, as with many a lingering look he turned again and again towards the Palace; and even when at length he was joined by his train, who waited at the entrance of the forest, he was still absorbed in gloomy meditations. However, he felt it was in vain, and springing on his horse, he turned his face resolutely on his onward way. Skirting along the wood, he soon reached Versailles, and thence proceeding with little intermission, he arrived in time to pass the night at Etampes, from which place he set out early the next morning for Orleans. Continuing to trace along the course of the Loire with quick stages, he soon arrived at Nevers, where he crossed the river, and shortly after entered the Bourbonnois. CHAPTER III. Which shows the truth of the French adage, "L'habit ne fait pas le moine."