hopes to interest me in looking at the future--it is surely not wonderful
that my spirits had sunk to their lowest ebb, and that I even failed to
appreciate with sufficient gratitude the fortunate accident of my birth.

Perhaps the journey to England had fatigued me, or perhaps the
controlling influences of the dark and silent night proved irresistible.
This only is certain: my solitary meditations under the tree ended in
sleep.

I was awakened by a light falling on my face.

The moon had risen. In the outward part of the wood, beyond which I had
not advanced, the pure and welcome light penetrated easily through the
scattered trees. I got up and looked about me. A path into the wood now
showed itself, broader and better kept than any path that I could
remember in the days of my boyhood. The moon showed it to me plainly, and
my curiosity was aroused.

Following the new track, I found that it led to a little glade which I at
once recognized. The place was changed in one respect only. A neglected
water-spring had been cleared of brambles and stones, and had been
provided with a drinking cup, a rustic seat, and a Latin motto on a
marble slab. The spring at once reminded me of a greater body of water--a
river, at some little distance farther on, which ran between the trees on
one side, and the desolate open country on the other. Ascending from the
glade, I found myself in one of the narrow woodland paths, familiar to me
in the by-gone time.

Unless my memory was at fault, this was the way which led to an old
water-mill on the river-bank. The image of the great turning wheel, which