What joys, what sorrows once centred around this cold and
desolate hearth-stone? What children went forth like birds
from this dismantled nest into the wide world? What guests
found refuge----

"Take care! stand back! There is a rattlesnake in the old
cellar."

The voice, even more than the words, startled me. I drew
away suddenly, and saw, behind the ruins of the chimney, a man
of an aspect so striking that to this day his face and figure
are as vivid in my memory as if it were but yesterday that I
had met him.

He was dressed in black, the coat of a somewhat formal
cut, a long cravat loosely knotted in his rolling collar. His
head was bare, and the coal-black hair, thick and waving, was
in some disorder. His face, smooth and pale, with high
forehead, straight nose, and thin, sensitive lips--was it old
or young? Handsome it certainly was, the face of a man of
mark, a man of power. Yet there was something strange and
wild about it. His dark eyes, with the fine wrinkles about
them, had a look of unspeakable remoteness, and at the same
time an intensity that seemed to pierce me through and
through. It was as if he saw me in a dream, yet measured me,
weighed me with a scrutiny as exact as it was at bottom
indifferent.

But his lips were smiling, and there was no fault to be
found, at least, with his manner. He had risen from the broad