He
cursed, in his secret soul, the insinuating elegance of Feathertop's
manners, as this brilliant personage bowed, smiled, put his hand on his
heart, inhaled a long whiff from his pipe, and enriched the atmosphere
with the smoky vapor of a fragrant and visible sigh. Gladly would poor
Master Gookin have thrust his dangerous guest into the street. But there
was a constraint and terror within him. This respectable old gentleman,
we fear, at an earlier period of life, had given some pledge or other to
the Evil Principle, and perhaps was now to redeem it by the sacrifice of
his daughter.

It so happened that the parlor-door was partly of glass, shaded by a
silken curtain, the folds of which hung a little awry. So strong was the
merchant's interest in witnessing what was to ensue between the fair
Polly and the gallant Feathertop, that after quitting the room, he could
by no means refrain from peeping through the crevice of the curtain.

But there was nothing very miraculous to be seen; nothing--except the
trifles previously noticed--to confirm the idea of a supernatural peril,
environing the pretty Polly. The stranger, it is true, was evidently a
thorough and practised man of the world, systematic and self-possessed,
and therefore the sort of person to whom a parent ought not to confide a
simple young girl, without due watchfulness for the result. The worthy
magistrate, who had been conversant with all degrees and qualities of
mankind, could not but perceive every motion and gesture of the
distinguished Feathertop came in its proper place; nothing had been left
rude or native in him; a well-digested conventionalism had incorporated
itself thoroughly with his substance, and transformed him into a work of
art. Perhaps it was this peculiarity that invested him with a species of
ghastliness and awe. It is the effect of any thing completely and
consummately artificial, in human shape, that the person impresses us as
an unreality, and as having hardly pith enough to cast a shadow upon the
floor. As regarded Feathertop, all this resulted in a wild, extravagant,
and fantastical impression, as if his life and being were akin to the
smoke that curled upward from his pipe.

But pretty Polly Gookin felt not thus. The pair were now promenading the
room; Feathertop with his dainty stride, and no less dainty grimace; the
girl with a native maidenly grace, just touched, not spoiled, by a
slightly affected manner, which seemed caught from