a sinister kind, but now his eyes wore a
malignant aspect, which not only aroused the youth's indignant retort
through the same medium, but struck him as indicating a feeling of
hatred to himself of a most singular character. Meeting the look of the
youth, the stranger rose hurriedly and left the table, but still
lingered in the apartment. Ralph was struck with his features, which it
appeared to him he had seen before, but as the person wore around his
cheeks, encompassing his head, a thick handkerchief, it was impossible
for him to decide well upon them. He turned to Forrester, who was busily
intent upon the dissection of a chicken, and in a low tone inquired the
name of the stranger. The woodman looked up and replied--

"Who that?--that's Guy Rivers; though what he's got his head tied up
for, I can't say. I'll ask him;" and with the word, he did so.

In answer to the question, Rivers explained his bandaging by charging
his jaws to have caught cold rather against his will, and to have
swelled somewhat in consequence. While making this reply, Ralph again
caught his glance, still curiously fixed upon himself, with an
expression which again provoked his surprise, and occasioned a gathering
sternness in the look of fiery indignation which he sent back in return.

Rivers, immediately after this by-play, left the apartment. The eye of
Ralph changing its direction, beheld that of the young maiden observing
him closely, with an expression of countenance so anxious, that he felt
persuaded she must have beheld the mute intercourse, if so we may call
it, between himself and the person whose conduct had so ruffled him. The
color had fled from her cheek, and there was something of warning in her
gaze. The polish and propriety which had distinguished her manners so
far as he had seen, were so different from anything that he had been led
to expect, and reminded him so strongly of another region, that, rising
from the table, he approached the place where she sat, took a chair
beside her, and with a gentleness and ease, the due result of his own
education and of the world he had lived in, commenced a conversation
with her, and was pleased to find himself encountered by a modest
freedom of opinion, a grace of thought, and a general intelligence,
which promised him better company than he had looked for. The villagers
had now left the apartment, all but Forrester; who, following Ralph's
example, took up a seat beside him, and sat a pleas