I bade him return and tell the gentlemen I was the person whom he requested to call that morning at nine o'clock on important business.
Some ten minutes elapsed; my pride took the alarm.

Could he be inventing some paltry excuse for getting rid of what he might consider my importunities?
The young woman again appeared who had before honored me with her notice, and who I presumed was the daughter of the woman who kept the house.

She accosted me in a manner by no means flattering to my self-esteem, and told me the gentleman whom I so absolutely persisted in seeing was quite unwell, and unable to converse with any one that day; that I must come tomorrow or the day following, or some other day, when he would be quite well and at leisure! With a contemptuous toss of her pretty head, she showed me the door, and motioned me to depart.
"Tell him," said I, "that I shall not trouble him again." She smiled, as if my remark met her hearty approval, and closed the door with a slam! I slowly returned, through the many magnificent thoroughfares of Baltimore, to the schooner.

The streets were thronged with people elegantly dressed, who appeared to be rejoicing in their good fortune and happy in their friends and families.

As I pensively wandered along, unnoticed and unknown, I felt all my loneliness, and began to think the prosperous and happy times would never arrive that had been promised in my dreams.