gratified by the idea of taking a wintry leave of it before my
expatriation. I ought to explain, that, to avoid being sought out before
my resolution should have been rendered irrevocable by being carried into
full effect, I had written to Angela overnight, in my usual manner,
lamenting that urgent business, of which she should know all particulars
by-and-by--took me unexpectedly away from her for a week or ten days.

There was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its place there were
stage-coaches; which I occasionally find myself, in common with some
other people, affecting to lament now, but which everybody dreaded as a
very serious penance then. I had secured the box-seat on the fastest of
these, and my business in Fleet Street was to get into a cab with my
portmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the Peacock at Islington,
where I was to join this coach. But when one of our Temple watchmen, who
carried my portmanteau into Fleet Street for me, told me about the huge
blocks of ice that had for some days past been floating in the river,
having closed up in the night, and made a walk from the Temple Gardens
over to the Surrey shore, I began to ask myself the question, whether the
box-seat would not be likely to put a sudden and a frosty end to my
unhappiness. I was heart-broken, it is true, and yet I was not quite so
far gone as to wish to be frozen to death.

When I got up to the Peacock,--where I found everybody drinking hot purl,
in self-preservation,--I asked if there were an inside seat to spare. I
then discovered that, inside or out, I was the only passenger. This gave
me a still livelier idea of the great inclemency of the weather, since
that coach always loaded particularly well. However, I took a little
purl (which I found uncommonly good), and got into the coach. When I was
seated, they built me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of
making a rather ridiculous appearance, I began my journey.