a smile, a nod, and sometimes, when sufficiently nigh, a friendly
word of salutation, but without having the effect of arresting
their onward progress. Yet many a backward glance was sent by the
elder of the travellers, whose eyes, beaming with satisfaction,
sufficiently declared the delight which he received from the
contemplation of so many of the mingled graces of physical and
moral nature. His loitering steps drew from his young companion an
occasional remark, which, to ears less benevolent and unsuspecting
than than those of the senior, might have been deemed a sarcasm; and
more than once the lips of the nephew had curled with contemptuous
smiles, as he watched the yearning glances of his uncle on each
side of the avenue, as they wended slowly through it.

At the end of the village, and at the foot of the opposite hills,
they encountered a group of young people of both sexes, whose bursts
of merriment were suddenly restrained as they emerged unexpectedly
into sight. The girls had been sitting upon the grassy mead, with
the young men before them; but they started to their feet at the
sound of strange steps, and the look of strange faces. Charlemont,
it must be remembered, was not in the thoroughfare of common travel.
If visited at all by strangers, it was most usually by those only
who came with a single purpose. Nothing, therefore could have been
more calculated to surprise a community so insulated, than that they
should attract, but not arrest the traveller. The natural surprise
which the young people felt, when unexpectedly encountered in their
rustic sports, was naturally increased by this unusual circumstance,
and they looked after the departing forms of the wayfarers with a
wonder and curiosity that kept them for some time silent. The elder
of the two, meanwhile--one of whose habits of mind was always to give
instantaneous utterance to the feeling which was upper-most--dilated,