seem to heed the little preparations for his comfort, but, resting his
cheek on his right hand, his left drooped on his crossed knees,--an
attitude rarely seen in a man when his heart is light and his spirits
high. His lips moved: he was talking to himself. Though he had laid
aside his theatrical bandage over both eyes, he wore a black patch over
one, or rather where one had been; the eye exposed was of singular
beauty, dark and brilliant. For the rest, the man had a striking
countenance, rugged, and rather ugly than otherwise, but by no means
unprepossessing; full of lines and wrinkles and strong muscle, with large
lips of wondrous pliancy, and an aspect of wistful sagacity, that, no
doubt, on occasion could become exquisitely comic,--dry comedy,--the
comedy that makes others roar when the comedian himself is as grave as a
judge.

You might see in his countenance, when quite in its natural repose, that
Sorrow had passed by there; yet the instant the countenance broke into
play, you would think that Sorrow must have been sent about her business
as soon as the respect due to that visitor, so accustomed to have her own
way, would permit. Though the man was old, you could not call him
aged. One-eyed and crippled, still, marking the muscular arm, the
expansive chest, you would have scarcely called him broken or infirm.
And hence there was a certain indescribable pathos in his whole
appearance, as if Fate had branded, on face and form, characters in which
might be read her agencies on career and mind,--plucked an eye from
intelligence, shortened one limb for life's progress, yet left whim
sparkling out in the eye she had spared, and a light heart's wild spring
in the limb she had maimed not.

"Come, Grandy, come," said the little girl, coaxingly; "your tea will get
quite cold; your toast is ready, and here is such a nice egg; Mr. Merle