statues look on forever. Here, then, in a seat opposite the gallery

entrance, I set to work on the events of the last night, to disengage

(if it were possible) truth from fiction.

The house, by daylight, had proved to be six stories high, the same as

ever. I could find, with all my architectural experience, no room in its

altitude for those interminable stairways, no width between its walls

for that long corridor, where I had tramped at night. And there was yet

a greater difficulty. I had read somewhere an aphorism that everything

may be false to itself save human nature. A house might elongate or

enlarge itself--or seem to do so to a gentleman who had been dining.

The ocean might dry up, the rocks melt in the sun, the stars fall from

heaven like autumn apples; and there was nothing in these incidents

to boggle the philosopher. But the case of the young lady stood upon a

different foundation. Girls were not good enough, or not good that way,

or else they were too good. I was ready to accept any of these views:

all pointed to the same conclusion, which I was thus already on the

point of reaching, when a fresh argument occurred, and instantly

confirmed it. I could remember the exact words we had each said; and I

had spoken, and she had replied, in English. Plainly, then, the whole

affair was an illusion: catacombs, and stairs, and charitable lady, all

were equally the stuff of dreams.

I had just come to this determination, when there blew a flaw of wind

through the autumnal gardens; the dead leaves showered down, and a

flight of sparrows, thick as a snowfall, wheeled above my head with

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