busy multitudes which moved noisily and
gaily around him, and nobody seemed to observe or to converse with him.
He was fashionably dressed, but perhaps rather extravagantly; his face
was full and heavy, expressive of sullenness and stupidity, and marked
with the lines of strong vulgarity; his age might be somewhere between
forty and fifty. Such as I have endeavoured to describe him, he remained
motionless, his arms doggedly folded across his broad chest, and turning
his sullen eyes from corner to corner of the room, as if eager to detect
some object on which to vent his ill-humour.

It is strange, and yet it is true, that one sometimes finds even in the
most commonplace countenance an undefinable something, which fascinates
the attention, and forces it to recur again and again, while it is
impossible to tell whether the peculiarity which thus attracts us lies
in feature or in expression, or in both combined, and why it is that our
observation should be engrossed by an object which, when analysed, seems
to possess no claim to interest or even to notice. This unaccountable
feeling I have often experienced, and I believe I am not singular.
but never in so remarkable a degree as upon this occasion. My friend
O'Connor, having disposed of his fair partner, was crossing the room
for the purpose of joining me, in doing which I was surprised to see him
exchange a familiar, almost a cordial, greeting with the object of
my curiosity. I say I was surprised, for independent of his very
questionable appearance, it struck me as strange that though so
constantly associated with O'Connor, and, as I thought, personally
acquainted with all his intimates, I had never before even seen this
individual. I did not fail immediately to ask him who this gentleman
was. I thought he seemed slightly embarrassed, but after a moment's
pause he laughingly said that his friend over the way was too mysterious
a personage to have his name announced in so giddy a scene as the
present; but that on the morrow he would furnish me with all the
information which I could desire. There was, I thought, in his affected
jocularity a real awkwardness which appeared to me unaccountable, and
consequently increased my curiosity; its gratification, however, I was
obliged to defer. At length, wearied with witnessing amusements in which
I could not sympathise, I left the room, and did not see O'Connor until
late in the next day.

I had ridden down towards the castle for t