walking on tiptoe and whispering, and he himself even went so far as to
refrain from the usual incense of his pipe, having observed that the
stranger, who seemed to be of a very delicate organization, had seemed
sensible of the disagreeable effect on the atmosphere of the room. The
restraint lasted, however, only till (in the course of the day) crusty
Hannah had fitted up a little bedroom on the opposite side of the
entry, to which she and the grim Doctor moved the stranger, who, though
tall, they observed was of no great weight and substance,--the lightest
man, the Doctor averred, for his size, that ever he had handled.

Every possible care was taken of him, and in a day or two he was able
to walk into the study again, where he sat gazing at the sordidness and
unneatness of the apartment, the strange festoons and drapery of
spiders' webs, the gigantic spider himself, and at the grim Doctor, so
shaggy, grizzly, and uncouth, in the midst of these surroundings, with
a perceptible sense of something very strange in it all. His mild,
gentle regard dwelt too on the two beautiful children, evidently with a
sense of quiet wonder how they should be here, and altogether a sense
of their unfitness; they, meanwhile, stood a little apart, looking at
him, somewhat disturbed and awed, as children usually are, by a sense
that the stranger was not perfectly well, that he had been injured, and
so set apart from the rest of the world.

"Will you come to me, little one?" said he, holding out a delicate hand
to Elsie.

Elsie came to his side without any hesitation, though without any of
the rush that accompanied her advent to those whom she affected. "And
you, my little man," added the stranger, quietly, and looking to Ned,
who likewise willingly approached, and, shaking him by the offered