very affectionate proximity. Once or twice I overheard, "My
darling," and, "You know, my love," which curt but meaning sentences
are much in fashion with persons on a bridal tour, and who set out
with the belief that earth has no ill that can disturb the solace of
their perhaps weak love.

The little deformed man, of the nervous temperament, and whose well
formed head seemed to have been thrown by accident upon his
distended chest, paced, or rather oscillated up and down the room,
swinging his arms restlessly, now casting a glance of his keen gray
eye at me, then pausing at the farther end of the room to read the
notice of a lecture on Crabbe, inscribed upon a great red poster.
There was something in the lettering of the poster that displeased
him exceedingly, for, having scanned over it, he would turn away
with a quickened pace, and mutter some incoherent sentences no one
present could comprehend, but which his increasing nervousness
betold were expressive of anger. The thought of Bessie made me
impatient, and following the example of the little deformed man, I
also commenced pacing the room, but on the opposite side of the
table, meeting and exchanging glances with him in the center. The
maps upon the walls furnished me themes for contemplation in my
sallies; and I read and reread the exact latitude and longitude of
the South Shoal, as it appeared on the charts. Then I paused at a
front window, and peered out into the starlight night, and saw the
tree tops in a little square opposite, move gently to the breeze,
while my fancies recurred to the association of that home, at the
fireside of which I pictured my father and mother, sitting thinking
of me. At the opposite end of the room I read, for it was there
printed upon the red colored poster, that the celebrated Giles
Sheridan, (who was no less a person than the little deformed man who