The Connecticut river, in the north, has a swift and sparkling current, so that it makes music as it flows. Tall trees bend over it, all along its course, as if inclining to kiss its nimble waters. These trees are of one kind, and resemble the graceful elm. To the lover of nature, I know of no scene so fitted to call out his enthusiasm. After toiling up an ascent of three or four miles, as you stop to breathe your panting steed, which, if bred in the country, toils so faithfully for you, your eye is filled with all kinds of scenery. Here on your right reposes a village, with its neat white houses, in a rich valley, the land rising in hills in every direction from it, partly wooded, with here and there a wide pasture of close-cropped green, dotted with the fleecy flock and lowing kine. The river bounds it, on one side of which is a circle of meadow land, and on the other a steep rocky precipice, falling abruptly to the water. It was twelve o'clock at night--a clear moon-light night--when we gained one of these elevations of land. No sound broke the stillness, save the voice of the 'solemn bird of night' marking by contrast the depth of the solitude of silence. Collins wept like a child. He had associations he would not communicate to me. Possibly he had been there before. He refused to speak. We stopped at the first public house, and he retired to his room without uttering a word. Until this evening, I had never spoken to Collins of my own love affair. I had never told him of my difficulties, nor let him know that I had had any. My object was to divert his melancholy, not to find relief from my own sorrows. That night, as we sat in silence contemplating the scene, some lines of poetry had escaped me, which Alice Clair had been fond of repeating. I felt Collins start as he listened, and soon after, he gave vent to a torrent of tears, the first I had ever seen him shed. The next morning we rode and travelled on in moody silence. Not a word was exchanged between us. Collins's whole manner toward me had changed. Now and then I discovered a black look upon his face, as he glanced toward me. I treated him with my usual kindness. I had, in the relation of my own unhappy attachment, concealed the name and personal appearance of Miss Clair, and the place, too. I was free from suspicion, supposed his reserve was a freak, and waited patiently for the recovery of his usual manner. We now left the river, and struck off to the Green Mountains, taking the road to N----, where we arrived about dark. All the town knew of our arrival, almost as soon as we were settled in our apartment. I found that Collins was known there as well as myself, though under a different name. He was greeted as 'Mr. Cowles,' by every one, and the people stared at him as they would at a spectre.