We sate till very late.

I forgot that I had purposed returning to town that evening--to Allan all places were alike--I grew noisy, he grew cheerful--Allan's old manners, old enthusiasm, were returning upon him--we laughed, we wept, we mingled our tears, and talked extravagantly.
Allan was my chamber-fellow that night--and lay awake planning schemes of living together under the same roof, entering upon similar pursuits,--and praising GOD, that we had met.
I was obliged to return to town the next morning, and Allan proposed to accompany me.

"Since the death of his sister," he told me, "he had been a wanderer." In the course of our walk he unbosomed himself without reserve--told me many particulars of his way of life for the last nine or ten years, which I do not feel myself at liberty to divulge.
Once, on my attempting to cheer him, when I perceived him over thoughtful, he replied to me in these words: "Do not regard me as unhappy when you catch me in these moods.

I am never more happy than at times when, by the cast of my countenance, men judge me most miserable.
"My friend, the events which have left this sadness behind them are of no recent date.

The melancholy which comes over me with the recollection of them is not hurtful, but only tends to soften and tranquillize my mind, to detach me from the restlessness of human pursuits.
"The stronger I feel this detachment, the more I find myself drawn heavenward to the contemplation of spiritual objects.
"I love to keep old friendships alive and warm within me, because I expect a renewal of them in the _World of Spirits_.
"I am a wandering and unconnected thing on the earth.