With a sigh I thought of the still younger girls, the unspeakably innocent little ones of three and four years of age whose charming prattle I tried to persuade myself that I had surely heard about some doorstep. But no, I never failed to notice these darlings, and my memory told me with unfailing accuracy that I had seen only men. Men, no one but men, bald, angular men, and these in their bold loneliness appearing to be robbed of all the graces and sweetness of immortal beings! My speculations as to the meaning of the strange state of things which I had observed in the town into which I had fallen, had hitherto been only those prompted by a dignified and philosophical curiosity. But the shock which I experienced on discovering the utter absence of woman from my environment had now made them positively painful. I stood still and shivered in the street. Surely I had gotten into an uncanny place, from which the sweetness and beauty of woman and the innocence of children had been banished! I could bear the suspense no longer. Casting my hitherto dignified deportment to the winds I ran recklessly after a man who had emerged from a drug store at some distance in front of me and seized him almost rudely by the arm. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. It was a fine-looking man that I had thus unceremoniously grasped by the arm, albeit he seemed to be plunged into the same deep dejection that I had observed in all his fellows. Like them, his hair and beard were neglected and unkempt, and there was a devouring melancholy in his eyes. His collar, instead of being fastened by any mechanical contrivance, depended solely upon his scarf for being held in place. This scarf was closely tied around his neck in a hard knot. Occasionally, when he turned his head to one side or the other, one end of his collar would escape from the scarf and stand off from his throat at an obtuse angle. But of this he appeared to be quite careless, and for the most part unconscious. Like many other men whom I had seen, one hand was awkwardly wrapped up in a cloth of sombre hue, and in the other hand he carried a bottle labelled “For Burns.” “Excuse me, sir,” I cried, “but I beg you to tell me what horrible misfortune has befallen this place. It seems like a land of mysterious mourning. Has some fearful plague devastated it? For Heaven’s sake, tell me, where are the women?” The man regarded me with an air of deep surprise, which, however, lent no animation to his cheerless countenance as he replied: