It
was strange and cruel that coming back from his quest of rest and
forgetfulness he should find only these youthful and sanguine dreams
revive with his reviving vigor. He walked on more hurriedly as if to
escape them, and was glad to be diverted by one or two carryalls and
char-a-bancs filled with gayly dressed pleasure parties--evidently
visitors to Hymettus--which passed him on the road. Here were the first
signs of change. He recalled the train of pack-mules of the old days,
the file of pole-and-basket carrying Chinese, the squaw with the papoose
strapped to her shoulder, or the wandering and foot-sore prospector, who
were the only wayfarers he used to meet. He contrasted their halts and
friendly greetings with the insolent curiosity or undisguised contempt
of the carriage folk, and smiled as he thought of the warning of the
blacksmith. But this did not long divert him; he found himself again
returning to his previous thought. Indeed, the face of a young girl in
one of the carriages had quite startled him with its resemblance to an
old memory of his lost love as he saw her,--her frail, pale elegance
encompassed in laces as she leaned back in her drive through Fifth
Avenue, with eyes that lit up and became transfigured only as he
passed. He tried to think of his useless quest in search of her last
resting-place abroad; how he had been baffled by the opposition of her
surviving relations, already incensed by the thought that her decline
had been the effect of her hopeless passion.
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