be heard on the turf. I think they fear his melancholy, not
understanding it. Or perhaps some hint of his sorrows has been given
them, and it is awe they feel rather than fear. However that may be,
no child ever takes his hand or prattles to him of its little joys or
griefs; and this in itself makes him look solitary, for we are much
given in this town to merry-making with our little ones, and it is a
common sight to see old and young together on the green, making sport
with ball or battledore.

And it is not the children only who hold him in high but distant
respect. The best men here are contented with a courteous bow from
him, while the women--matrons now, who once were blushing
maidens--think they have shown him enough honor if they make him a
deep curtsey and utter a mild "Good-morrow."

The truth is, he invites nothing more. He talks to me because he must
talk to some one, but our conversation is always of things outside of
our village life, and never by any chance of the place or any one in
it. He lives at his father's house, now his, and has for his sole
companion an old servant of the family, who was once his nurse, and
who is, I believe, the only person in the world who is devotedly
attached to him.

Unless it is myself. Sometimes I think I love him; sometimes I think I
do not. He fascinates me, and could make me do most anything he
pleased, but have I a real affection for him? Almost; and this is
something which I consider strange.

* * * * *

Where does the Colonel go evenings? His old nurse has asked me, and I
find I cannot answer. Not to the tavern, for I am often there; not to
the houses of the neighbors, for none of them profess to know him.
Where then? Is the curiosity of my youth coming back to me? It looks
very much like it, Philo, very much like it.

* * * * *

My daughter said to me to-day: "Father, do not go any more to the
Colonel's." And when I asked her why, she answered that her lover--she
has a _lover_, the minx--had told her that the Colonel held secret
talks with the witches, and though I laughed at this, it has set me
thinking. He goes to the forest at night, and roams for hours among
its shadows. Is this a healthy occupation for a man, especially a man
with a history? I shall go early to the Schuyler homestead to-night
and stay late, for these midnight communings with nature may be the
source of the hideous gloom which