His resolution was taken, he would renew the strife with the world and go back to busy life. His companion of many dangers and long marches was going to Mexico in search of new adventures. They are alone upon the broad levee--busy men are hurrying to and fro, little heeding the two--a small schooner is dropping and sheeting home her sails; she is up for Tampico, and Gilmanot goes in her; she is throwing off her fastenings. "All aboard," cries the swarthy, whiskered captain--a grasp of the hand--no word was spoken--it was warm and sincere, there was no need of words--each understood that last warm farewell pressure. She is sweeping around Slaughter-house Point--only the topmasts are visible now--and now she is gone. The young adventurer stands alone and the crowd goes hurrying on. How many in desolation of heart have stood alone and unheeded by the busy, passing multitude upon that broad levee! How many tears of misery have moistened its shell-covered summit, when thinking of friends far, far away they should never see again, and when hope had been rooted from the heart! He wandered to the great square, now so beautifully ornamented with shrubs and flowers which love the sun and the South's fat soil, growing and blooming about the bronze representation of the loved hero who had been her shield and savior in the hour of her peril, Andrew Jackson. Then there were a few trees only, and beneath these, here and there, a rude rural seat or bench. The old, gray cathedral was frowning on the world's sins, so rife around her; and the great, naked square and the mighty muddy river which was hurrying away to the sea. To the most thoughtless will come reflection, and the sweetest face is mellowed by sorrow. Here under these trees, in the midst of a great city, came to the young adventurer reflection and sighing sorrow. His mother and father came up in memory; the home of childhood, his brother, his sister, his friends, all were remembered; his heart flooded over and he wept like a little child. Blessed are they who can cry. It is nature's outlet for grief, and the heart would break if we could not cry. The heart is not desolate when alone in the forest or the boundless grass-clothed plains of the West. Nature is all around you, and her smile is beneficent. There is companionship in the breeze, in the waving grass, the rustling leaves, and the meanings of the wind-swayed limbs of the yielding forest. In the city's multitude to move, and be unknown of all; to hear no recognized voice; to meet no sympathizing smile or eye; to be silent when all are speaking, and to know that not one of all these multitudes share a thought or wish with you--this is desolation, the bitterness of solitude.