58 AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.

lamp in hand, stalked along the lobbies, unchained
and unlocked the oak which our faithful night-
porter Somnus had sported—and, lo! a figure
muffied up in a cloak, and furred like a Ituss,
advanced familiarly into the hall, extended both
hands, bade God bless us, and pronounced, with
somewhat of a foreign accent, the name in which
we and the world rejoiced— Christopher North !’
We were not slow in returning the hug fraternal,
for who was it but the ‘American woodsman ?’—
even Audubon himself,—fresh from the F loridas,
and breathing of the pure air of far-off Labrador!
“ Three years and upwards had fled since we had
taken farewell of the illustrious ornithologist, on
the same spot, at the same hour; and there was
something ghost-like in such return of a dear friend
from a distant region almost as from the land of
spirits. . . . In less time than we have taken
to write it we two were sitting cheek by jowl, and
hand in hand, by that essential fire—avlile Wwe
showed by our looks that we both felt, now they
were over, that three years are but as one day !”
The rites of hospitality being fitly observed, the
friends scanned each other’s appearance, and “ Au-
dubon found an opportunity of telling us that he
had never seen us ina higher state of preservation;
and, in a low voice, whispered something about the
‘Eagle renewing his youth’ We acknowledged