eat pain, or suffering keenly from anguish of spirit, and
when it was opened to admit the new-comers, the voice of Chanticleer,
raised for the second time, broke in, clear and shrilly, from the outer
darkness.

CHAPTER NINTH.

THE NEW-COMERS.

It was old Sylvester himself who opened the door and admitted the
strangers; one of them, the younger, wore a slouched hat which did not
allow his features to be distinctly observed, further than that his eyes
were bright with a strange lustre, and that his face was deadly pale. He
was partly supported by the elder man, whose person was clad in a long
coat, reaching nearly to the ground. They were invited to the table, but
refusing, asked permission to sit at the fire, which being granted, they
took their station on either side of the hearth; the younger staggered
feebly to his seat, and kept his gaze closely fixed on the other.

"He had better take something," said old Sylvester, looking toward the
young man and addressing the other. "Is your young friend ill?"

"With an ailment food cannot relieve, I fear," the elder man answered.

"Will you not remove your hats?" old Sylvester asked again.

Turning slowly at this question, the young man answered, "We may not
prove fit company for such as you, and if so the event shall prove, we
will pass on and trouble you no further. If every thread were dry as
summer flax," he added, in a tone of deep feeling, "I for one, am not
fit to sit among honest people."

"You should not say so, my son," said old Sylvester; "let us hope that
all men may on a day like this sit together; that, remembering God's
many mercies to us all, in the preservation of our lives, in his blessed
change of seasons, in hours of holy meditation allowed to us, every man
in very gratitude to the Giver of all Good, for this one day in the year
at least, may suspend all evil thoughts and be at peace with all his
fellow-creatures."

The young man turned toward the company at the table, but not so far
that his whole face could be seen.

"Have all who sit about you at that table," he asked, glancing slowly
around, "performed the duty to which you refer, and purged their bosoms
of unkindness toward their fellow-men? Is there none who grasps the
widow's substance? who cherishes scorn and hatred of kindred? Who judges
harshly of the absent?"

There was a movement in different members of the company, but old
Sylvester hushed them with a look, and took upon him