ds all my opinions upon
speculative subjects. We have had a great deal of conversation this
evening, I assure you; and I never met, I think, so scholarlike and
able a man."

"I am sorry for it, dearest," she said, sadly. "The greater his talents,
if such be his opinions, the more dangerous a companion is he."

We turned, however, to more cheerful topics, and it was late before we
retired to rest. I believe it was pride--perhaps only vanity--but, at all
events, some obstructive and stubborn instinct of my nature, which I
could not overcome--that prevented my telling my wife the odd occurrences
which had disturbed my visit to our guest. I was unable or ashamed to
confess that so slight a matter had disturbed me; and, above all, that
any accident could possibly have clouded, even for a moment, the frosty
clearness of my pure and lofty scepticism with the shadows of
superstition.

Almost every day seemed to develop some new eccentricity of our strange
guest. His dietary consisted, without any variety or relief, of the
monotonous bread and milk with which he started; his bed had not been
made for nearly a week; nobody had been admitted into his room since my
visit, just described; and he never ventured down stairs, or out of
doors, until after nightfall, when he used sometimes to glide swiftly
round our little enclosed shrubbery, and at others stand quite
motionless, composed, as if in an attitude of deep attention. After
employing about an hour in this way, he would return, and steal up stairs
to his room, when he would shut himself up, and not be seen again until
the next night--or, it might be, the night after that--when, perhaps, he
would repeat his odd excursion.

Strange as his habits were, their eccentricity was all upon the side
least troublesome to us. He required literally no attendance; and as to
his occasional night ramble, even _it_ caused not the slightest
disturbance of our routine hour for securing the house and locking up the
hall-door for the night, inasmuch as he had invariably retired before
that hour arrived.

All this stimulated curiosity, and, in no small degree, that of my wife,
who, notwithstanding her vigilance and her anxiety to see our strange
inmate, had been hitherto foiled by a series of cross accidents. We were
sitting together somewhere about ten o'clock at night, when there came a
tap at the room-door. We had just been discussing the unaccountable
Smith; and I felt a sheepish conscious