tily sat down again, while the
visitor very respectfully took her hand, and made the usual inquiries.
After this, he was introduced to me; and then Margaret was sent away to
summon her mother down stairs. While she was out of the room, there was
nothing to distract my attention from Mr. Mannion. I looked at him with
a curiosity and interest, Which I could hardly account for at first.

If extraordinary regularity of feature were alone sufficient to make
a handsome man, then this confidential clerk of Mr. Sherwin's was
assuredly one of the handsomest men I ever beheld. Viewed separately
from the head (which was rather large, both in front and behind) his
face exhibited, throughout, an almost perfect symmetry of proportion.
His bald forehead was smooth and massive as marble; his high brow and
thin eyelids had the firmness and immobility of marble, and seemed
as cold; his delicately-formed lips, when he was not speaking, closed
habitually, as changelessly still as if no breath of life ever passed
them. There was not a wrinkle or line anywhere on his face. But for the
baldness in front, and the greyness of the hair at the back and sides
of his head, it would have been impossible from his appearance to have
guessed his age, even within ten years of what it really was.

Such was his countenance in point of form; but in that which is the
outward assertion of our immortality--in expression--it was, as I now
beheld it, an utter void. Never had I before seen any human face
which baffled all inquiry like his. No mask could have been made
expressionless enough to resemble it; and yet it looked like a mask.
It told you nothing of his thoughts, when he spoke: nothing of his
disposition, when he was silent. His cold grey eyes gave you no help in
trying to study him. They never varied from the steady, straightforward
look, which was exactly the same for Margaret as it was for me; for Mrs.
Sherwin as for Mr. Sherwin--exactly the same whether he spoke or whether
he listened; whether he talked of indifferent, or of important matters.
Who was he? What was he? His name and calling were poor replies to those
questions. Was he naturally cold and unimpressible at heart? or had some
fierce passion, some terrible sorrow, ravaged the life within him, and
left it dead for ever after? Impossible to conjecture! There was the
impenetrable face before you, wholly inexpressive--so inexpressive that
it did not even look vacant--a mystery for your eyes an