sudden stop was put to our gay amusements. I could not ride or
drive out any more; nor would I go to entertainments anywhere.
The stir and the rush of the world had quietly dropped me out
of it.

Yet I was more than ever eager to be in it and know what was
doing; and above all, what one was doing. I studied the
newspapers, more assiduously than I had hitherto had time for.
They excited me almost unbearably with the desire to know more
than they told, and with unnumbered fears and anxieties. I
took to walking, to wear away part of the restless uneasiness
which had settled upon me. I walked in the morning; I walked
at evening, when the sun's light was off the avenue and the
air a little cooler; and kept myself out of the house as much
as I could.

It was so that I came upon my object, when I was not seeking
it. One evening I was walking up Pennsylvania avenue; slowly,
for the evening was warm, although the sun had gone down.
Slowly and disconsolately. My heart began to fail me. I
pondered writing a word to Mr. Thorold, now that I was
completely at liberty; and I wished I had done it at once upon
Dr. Sandford's becoming ill. Two or three days' time had been
lost. I should have to take the note to the post-office
myself; but that would not be impossible now, as it had been
until now. While I was thinking these things, I saw a horseman
riding down the avenue; a single horseman, coming at a fast
gallop. I had never seen Mr. Thorold on horseback; yet from
almost the first sight of this mounted figure my heart said
with a bound who it was. I stood still by the curbstone,