catch my eye. Arrived at my destination, I found myself in a dirty
manufacturing town, with an ugly river running through it.

"After a little reflection, I turned my back on the town, and followed
the course of the river, in search of shelter and solitude on one or the
other of its banks. An hour of walking brought me to an odd-looking
cottage, half old and half new, attached to a water-mill. A bill in one
of the windows announced that rooms were to be let; and a look round
revealed a thick wood on my left hand, and a wilderness of sand and heath
on my right. So far as appearances went, here was the very place for me.

"I knocked at the door, and was admitted by a little lean sly-looking old
man. He showed me the rooms--one for myself, and one for my servant.
Wretched as they were, the loneliness of the situation recommended them
to me. I made no objections; and I consented to pay the rent that was
asked. The one thing that remained to be done, in the interests of my
tranquillity, was to ascertain if any other persons lived the cottage
besides my new landlord. He wrote his answer to the question: 'Nobody but
my daughter.' With serious misgivings, I inquired if his daughter was
young. He wrote two fatal figures: '18'.

"Here was a discovery which disarranged all my plans, just as I had
formed them! The prospect of having a girl in the house, at the age
associated with my late disagreeable experience of the sensitive sex, was
more than my irritable temper could endure. I saw the old man going to
the window to take down the bill. Turning in a rage to stop him, I was
suddenly brought to a standstill by the appearance of a person who had
just entered the room.

"Was this the formidable obstacle to my tranquillity, which had prevented