There was that in Aram's person which irresistibly commanded attention.
The earnest composure of his countenance, its thoughtful paleness, the
long hair falling back, the peculiar and estranged air of his whole
figure, accompanied as it was, by a mildness of expression, and that
lofty abstraction which characterises one who is a brooder over his own
heart--a ponderer and a soothsayer to his own dreams;--all these arrested
from time to time the second gaze of the passenger, and forced on him the
impression, simple as was the dress, and unpretending as was the gait of
the stranger, that in indulging that second gaze, he was in all
probability satisfying the curiosity which makes us love to fix our
regard upon any remarkable man.

At length Aram turned from the more crowded streets, and in a short time
paused before one of the most princely houses in London. It was
surrounded by a spacious court-yard, and over the porch, the arms of the
owner, with the coronet and supporters, were raised in stone.

"Is Lord--within?" asked Aram of the bluff porter who appeared at the
gate.

"My Lord is at dinner," replied the porter, thinking the answer quite
sufficient, and about to reclose the gate upon the unseasonable visitor.

"I am glad to find he is at home," rejoined Aram, gliding past the
servant, with an air of quiet and unconscious command, and passing the
court-yard to the main building.

At the door of the house, to which you ascended by a flight of stone
steps, the valet of the nobleman--the only nobleman introduced in our
tale, and consequently the same whom we have presented to our reader in