“What a confounded hole!” burst out Merl, passionately. “That I ever should have set my foot in it! How are we to get through the day here? Have you thought of anything to be done?” “_I'll_ go down and find out how poor Landy is,” said Crow; “for Miss Mary's horse is still at the door, and he must be very bad, indeed, or she wouldn't delay so long.” “And what if it should turn out the cholera, or typhus, or something as bad?” “Well?” said Crow, interrogatively; for he could not guess the drift of the suggestion. “Simply this, my worthy friend,” resumed Merl,--“that I have no fancy for the pleasure of your company at dinner after such an excursion as you speak of.” “I was just going to say that myself,” said Crow. “Good-bye!” And before Merl could interpose a word, he was gone. CHAPTER XII. MR. MERL'S MEDITATIONS. Our last chapter left Mr. Herman Merl in bad company,--he was alone. Now, very few men's thoughts are companionable in the dreary solitude of a sorry inn. None of us, it is to be feared, are totally exempt from “this world's crosses;” and though the sorrows of life do fall very unequally, the light afflictions are accepted as very heavy burdens by those to whose lot they fall! Just as it happens, then, on some gloomy day of winter, when we have “finished our book,” and the newspapers are tiresome, we take the opportunity to look through our letters and papers,--to arrange our desk, and put a little order in our scattered and littered memoranda,--somewhat in the same spirit will Conscience grasp a similar moment to go over the past, glance at bygone events, and make, as it were, a clearance of whatever weighs upon our memory. I 'm not quite certain that the best of us come out of this Bankruptcy Court with a first-class certificate. Even the most merciful to his own errors will acknowledge that in many things he should do differently were they to be done over again; and he must, indeed, have fallen upon a happy lot in life who has not some self-reproach on the score of kindness unrequited,--slight injuries either unforgiven or unequally avenged,--friendships jeopardized, mayhap lost, by some mere indulgence of temper,--and enmities unreconciled, just for lack of the veriest sacrifice of self-love. Were there any such court in morals as in law, what a sad spectacle would our schedule show, and how poor even the most solvent amongst us, if called on for a list of his liabilities! Lest our moralizing should grow uncomfortable, dear reader, let us return to Mr. Merl, now occupied, as he was, in this same process of self-examination. He sat with a little note-book before him, recalling various incidents of the past. And if the lowering expression of his face might be trusted, his reveries were not rose-colored; and yet, as he turned over the pages, it might be seen that moments of gratulation alternated with the intervals of self-reproach.