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THE MYSTERIOUS MEETING.
AFTER more than a fortnight spent in the highlands of Scotland, Jerome passed hastily through London on his way to the continent.
It was toward sunset, on a warm day in October, shortly after his arrival in France, that, after strolling some distance from the Hotel de Leon, in the old and picturesque town of Dunkirk, he entered a burial-ground--such places being always favorite walks with him--and wandered around among the silent dead.

All nature around was hushed in silence, and seemed to partake of the general melancholy that hung over the quiet resting-place of the departed.

Even the birds seemed imbued with the spirit of the place, for they were silent, either flying noiselessly over the graves, or jumping about in the tall grass.

After tracing the various inscriptions that told the characters and conditions of the deceased, and viewing the mounds beneath which the dust of mortality slumbered, he arrived at a secluded spot near where an aged weeping willow bowed its thick foliage to the ground, as though anxious to hide from the scrutinizing gaze of curiosity the grave beneath it.
Jerome seated himself on a marble tombstone, and commenced reading from a book which he had carried under his arm.