I know not how it happened, but, as I have remarked, the habit of visiting this spot every morning, was fastened on me. Never shall I forget some of the faces I encountered there. One image is impressed on me indelibly; it is that of a woman of middle age, with a very pale face, and having the appearance of one struggling with some wearing sorrow, who for two weeks in succession came in daily, and walking painfully up to the partition, looked intently through the lattice work, and turned and went away. I never before felt so strong an impulse to accost a person, without yielding to it. Indeed I had resolved to speak to her on the morning of the fifteenth day, but she did not come and I never saw her again. Who was she? did her fears prove groundless? what became of her? An old man I remember to have seen--a very old man, feeble and decrepit, who came once only, looked at the dead, shook his head despairingly, and tottered away: I know not if he discovered the object of his search. Young girls who had quarrelled with their lovers, and lovers who in moments of jealousy had been cruel to their sweethearts, would look anxiously in, and generally with relieved spirits pass out, almost smilingly, resolving no doubt to make all up before night should again tempt to suicide. Another incident I cannot omit, although it is impossible to recall it without a dreadful pang. One morning a pretty fair-haired child, not more than four years old, came running in, and clasping the wooden bar with one hand, pointed with her little finger through the opening, and with a tone of innocent curiosity said, "There's mamma!" The same moment two or three rushed in, and seizing the unconscious orphan, carried her hastily away. She had wandered after some of the family, and heard enough as they came from the fatal place to lead her to suppose her lost mamma was there, and so she ran to see. What could be the circumstances so untoward, that even the child could not bind the mother to life? A long chapter might be written of the occurrences at my singular rendezvous, but I had no design, when I began, of alluding to them, and I will only remark here that, leaving Paris some time after for the south of Europe, I got rid of this nightmare impulse, and although I returned the following season I never again entered _La Morgue_.... It was in the spring when I came back. The foliage was deep and green, and in the _Jardin des Plants_, which was near my quarters, the various flowers and shrubs and trees filled the atmosphere with fragrance, and tempted us to frequent strolls along its avenues. "Come with me at six o'clock," said my friend Partridge, "and you shall see an apparition." "Where?" "I will not tell you, till we are on the Spot." "I will go, but hope the rendezvous will be an agreeable one." Just then, I know not why, I thought of _La Morgue_, and shuddered. "The most agreeable in all Paris."