prime of life, and though stooping a little, like so many countrymen, very
tall, and built proportionately broad across the shoulders and chest. His
features were handsome--perhaps there was a trace of indolence in their
good-humoured expression--and he had a thick black beard just marked with
one thin wavy line of grey. That trace of snow, if anything, rather added
to the manliness of his aspect, and conveyed the impression that he was at
the fulness of life when youth and experience meet. If anything, indeed,
he looked too comfortable, too placid. A little ambition, a little
restlessness, would perhaps have been good for him.

By degrees he got nearer to the house; but it was by degrees only, for he
stayed to look over every gate, and up into almost every tree. He stopped
to listen as his ear caught the sound of hoofs on the distant road, and
again at the faint noise of a gun fired a mile away. At the corner of a
field a team of horses--his own--were resting awhile as the carter and his
lad ate their luncheon. Harry stayed to talk to the man, and yet again at
the barn door to speak to his men at work within with the winnowing
machine. The homestead stood on an eminence, but was hidden by elms and
sycamores, so that it was possible to pass at a distance without observing
it.

On entering the sitting-room Harry leaned his gun against the wall in the
angle between it and the bureau, from which action alone it might have
been known that he was a bachelor, and that there were no children about
the house to get into danger with fire-arms. His elderly aunt, who acted
as housekeeper, was already at table waiting for him. It was spread with a
snow-white cloth, and almost equally snow-white platter for bread--so much
and so well was it cleaned. They ate home-baked bread; they were so many
miles from a town or baker that it was difficult to get served regularly,
a circumstance which preserved that wholesome institution. There was a