and, meanwhile, I was absolutely destitute of support. My father's
house was, indeed, open to me, but I preferred to stifle myself
with the filth of the kennel, rather than to return to it.

Some plan it was immediately necessary to adopt. The exigence
of my affairs, and this reverse of fortune, continually occupied my
thoughts; I estranged myself from society and from books, and
devoted myself to lonely walks and mournful meditation.

One morning as I ranged along the bank of Schuylkill, I
encountered a person, by name Ludloe, of whom I had some previous
knowledge. He was from Ireland; was a man of some rank and
apparently rich: I had met with him before, but in mixed
companies, where little direct intercourse had taken place between
us. Our last meeting was in the arbour where Ariel was so
unexpectedly introduced.

Our acquaintance merely justified a transient salutation; but
he did not content himself with noticing me as I passed, but joined
me in my walk and entered into conversation. It was easy to advert
to the occasion on which we had last met, and to the mysterious
incident which then occurred. I was solicitous to dive into his
thoughts upon this head and put some questions which tended to the
point that I wished.

I was somewhat startled when he expressed his belief, that the
performer of this mystic strain was one of the company then
present, who exerted, for this end, a faculty not commonly
possessed. Who this person was he did not venture to guess, and
could not discover, by the tokens which he suffered to appear, that