the heart of France. He thinks the most
remarkable journey he was made to take, was
from Euston Square into Northamptonshire;
so, by the fens of Lincolnshire round to Rugby;
thence, through the whole of the North of
England and a considerable part of Scotland,
to Liverpool; thence, to Douglas in the Isle
of Man; and back, by way of Ireland, Wales,
Great Yarmouth, and Bishop Stortford, to
Windsor Castle. Throughout the whole of
these travels, he observed the black-barrier
system in active operation, and was always
stopped when he least expected it. He
invariably travelled against his will, and
found a code of cabalistic signs in use all over
the country.

Anxiety and disappointment had now
produced their natural results. His face was
wan, his voice much weakened, his hair scanty
and grey, the whole man expressive of fatigue
and endurance. It is an affecting instance of
the influence of uneasiness and depression on
the mind of Mr. Lost, that he now commenced
wildly to seek the object of his journey in the
strangest directions. Abandoning the
Railroads on which he had undergone so much,
he began to institute a feverish inquiry for it
among a host of boarding-houses and hotels.
"Bed, breakfast, boots, and attendance, two
and sixpence per day."—" Bed and boots,
seven shillings per week."—"Wines and
spirits of the choicest quality."—" Night
Porter in constant attendance."—" For night
arrivals, ring the private door bell."— "Omnibuses
to and from all parts of London, every
minute." —" Do not confound this house with
any other of the same name." Among such
addresses to the public, did Mr. Lost now
seek for a way to Worcester. As he might
have anticipated—as he did anticipate in fact,
for he was hopeless now— it was not to be
found there. His intellect was greatly shaken.

Mr. Lost has left, in his Diary, a record so
minute of the gradual deadening of his
intelligence and benumbing of his faculties, that
he can be followed downward, as it were step
by step. Thus, we find that when he had
exhausted the boarding-houses and hotels,
family, commercial and otherwise (in which
he found his intellect much enfeebled by the
constant recurrence of the hieroglyphic " 1—
6—51—W. J. A."), he addressed himself, with
the same dismal object, to Messrs. Moses and
Son, and to Mr. Medwin, bootmaker to His
Royal Highness Prince Albert. After them,
even to inanimate things, as the Patent
Compendium Portmanteau, the improved Chaff
Machines and Corn Crushers, the Norman
Razor, the Bank of England Sealing Wax,
Schweppe's Soda Water, the Extract of
Sarsaparilla, the Registered Paletot, Rowlands'
Kalydor, the Cycloidal Parasol, the Cough
Lozenges, the universal night-light, the
poncho, Allsopp's pale ale, and the patent
knife cleaner. Failing, naturally, in all these
appeals, and in a final address to His Grace
the Duke of Wellington in the gentlemanly
summer garment, and to Mr. Burton of the
General Furnishing Ironmongery Warehouse,
he sank into a stupor, and abandoned hope.

Mr. Lost is now a ruin. He is at the
Euston Square Hotel. When advised to
return home he merely shakes his head and
mutters " Ware Tu . . 6." No Cabman can
be found who will take charge of him on
those instructions. He sits continually turning
over the leaves of a small, dog's-eared quarto
volume with a yellow cover, and babbling in
a plaintive voice, " BRADSHAW, BRADSHAW."

A few days since, Mrs. Lost, having been
cautiously made acquainted with his condition,
arrived at the hotel, accompanied by the
confidential domestic. The first words of the
heroic woman were:

"John Lost, don't make a spectacle of
yourself, don't. Who am I?"

He replied "BRADSHAW."

"John Lost," said Mrs. Lost, "I have no
patience with you. Where have you been
to?"

Fluttering the leaves of the book, he
answered " To BRADSHAW."

"Stuff and nonsense, you tiresome man,"
said Mrs. Lost. " You put me out of patience.
What on earth has brought you to this stupid
state?"

He feebly answered, "BRADSHAW."

No one knows what he means.

THE ISLAND IN THE RIVER.

IN THREE PARTS.
PART III.—- CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

WHOLLY engrossed by the idea of seeking
Annie, no matter how remote his chance
of finding her, the young basket-maker had
not, for a moment, paused to consider that if
she had left Eton, as was most probable, he
had not the slightest clue to the direction of
her flight. Bitterly repenting of his
indecision in bidding her farewell the last time he
had seen her without again alluding to the
events of the preceding night, he felt that he
could find no rest, nor escape his own
reproaches, but in seeking her. What would
he not have given to bring back that night
when she begged him so earnestly to take her
away? He remembered now, more vividly
than ever, her wild and anxious manner—the
pale and care-worn expression of her features,
as she sat sleeping by the firelight. He
recalled also her thrilling tone, while speaking
of her old, happy life, to which in that interval
of repentance—trembling as she was upon the
brink of guilt—she had so entreated to return.
He could not account to himself for the weakness
which had withheld him from speaking
to her in the morning. A kind of fascination
seemed to have been upon him—a hope, almost
to the last moment, that she would be the
first to speak—a feeling of uncertainty as to
the nature of her trouble—a fear of paining
her with a mistaken interpretation of her