Well, sir, away to London I rattled in a tandem, determined to take the town gaily. I passed through several of the villages where I had played the jack-pudding a few years before; and I visited the scenes of many of my adventures and follies, merely from that feeling of melancholy pleasure which we have in stepping again into the footprints of foregone existence, even when they have passed among weeds and briars. I made a circuit in the latter part of my journey, so as to take in West End and Hempstead, the scenes of my last dramatic exploit, and of the battle royal of the booth. As I drove along the ridge of Hempstead Hill, by Jack Straw’s castle, I paused at the spot where Columbine and I had sat down so disconsolately in our ragged finery, and looked dubiously upon London. I almost expected to see her again, standing on the hill’s brink, “like Niobe all tears;”—mournful as Babylon in ruins! “Poor Columbine!” said I, with a heavy sigh, “thou wert a gallant, generous girl—a true woman, faithful to the distressed, and ready to sacrifice thyself in the cause of worthless man!” I tried to whistle off the recollection of her; for there was always Something of self-reproach with it. I drove gayly along the road, enjoying the stare of hostlers and stable-boys as I managed my horses knowingly down the steep street of Hempstead; when, just at the skirts of the village, one of the traces of my leader came loose. I pulled up; and as the animal was restive and my servant a bungler, I called for assistance to the robustious master of a snug ale-house, who stood at his door with a tankard in his hand. He came readily to assist me, followed by his wife, with her bosom half open, a child in her arms, and two more at her heels. I stared for a moment as if doubting my eyes. I could not be mistaken; in the fat, beer-blown landlord of the ale-house I recognized my old rival Harlequin, and in his slattern spouse, the once trim and dimpling Columbine.