I pretended to myself that I should like once more to see Mrs. Butts-
-perhaps she might be in want and I could help her. I shrank from
writing to her or from making myself known to her, and at last I hit
upon the expedient of answering her advertisement in a feigned name,
and requesting her to call at the King's Arms hotel upon a gentleman
who wished to engage a widow lady to teach his children. To prevent
any previous inquiries on her part, I said that my name was Williams,
that I lived in the country at some little distance from the town,
but that I should be there on business on the day named. I took up
my quarters at the King's Arms the night before. It seemed very
strange to be in an inn in the place in which I was born. I retired
early to my bedroom, and looked out in the clear moonlight over the
river. The landscape seemed haunted by ghosts of my former self. At
one particular point, so well known, I stood fishing. At another,
equally well known, where the water was dangerously deep, I was
examining the ice; and round the corner was the boathouse where we
kept the little craft in which I had voyaged so many hundreds of
miles on excursions upwards beyond where the navigation ends, or,
still more fascinating, down to where the water widens and sails are
to be seen, and there is a foretaste of the distant sea.
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