equipped, I surveyed myself in a mirror.

You may imagine, if you can, the sensations which this instantaneous
transformation produced. Appearances are wonderfully influenced by
dress. Check shirt, buttoned at the neck, an awkward fustian coat, check
trowsers and bare feet, were now supplanted by linen and muslin, nankeen
coat striped with green, a white silk waistcoat elegantly
needle-wrought, cassimere pantaloons, stockings of variegated silk, and
shoes that in their softness, pliancy, and polished surface vied with
satin. I could scarcely forbear looking back to see whether the image in
the glass, so well proportioned, so gallant, and so graceful, did not
belong to another. I could scarcely recognise any lineaments of my own.
I walked to the window. "Twenty minutes ago," said I, "I was traversing
that path a barefoot beggar; now I am thus." Again I surveyed myself.
"Surely some insanity has fastened on my understanding. My senses are
the sport of dreams. Some magic that disdains the cumbrousness of
nature's progress has wrought this change." I was roused from these
doubts by a summons to breakfast, obsequiously delivered by a black
servant.

I found Welbeck (for I shall henceforth call him by his true name) at
the breakfast-table. A superb equipage of silver and china was before
him. He was startled at my entrance. The change in my dress seemed for a
moment to have deceived him. His eye was frequently fixed upon me with
unusual steadfastness. At these times there was inquietude and wonder in
his features.

I had now an opportunity of examining my host. There was nicety but no
ornament in his dress. His form was of the middle height, spare, but
vigorous and graceful. His face was cast, I thought, in a foreign mould.
His forehead receded beyond the usual degree in visages which I had
seen. His eyes large and prominent, but imparting no marks of benignity
and habitual joy. The rest of his face forcibly suggested the idea of a
convex edge. His whole figure impressed me with emotions of veneration
and awe. A gravity that almost amounted to sadness invariably attended
him when we were alone together.

He whispered the servant that waited, who immediately retired. He then
said, turning to me, "A lady will enter presently, whom you are to treat
with the respect due to my daughter. You must not notice any emotion she
may betray at the sight of you, nor expect her to converse with you; for
she does not understand your lang