an attitude of profound abstraction, his arms folded, his eyes bent on
the ground, his brows slightly contracted; his dress was a plain black
surtout, and pantaloons of the same colour. Something both in the
fashion of the dress, and still more in the face of the man, bespoke the
foreigner.

Sir Miles St. John was an accomplished person for that time of day. He
had made the grand tour; he had bought pictures and statues; he spoke and
wrote well in the modern languages; and being rich, hospitable, social,
and not averse from the reputation of a patron, he had opened his house
freely to the host of emigrants whom the French Revolution had driven to
our coasts. Olivier Dalibard, a man of considerable learning and rare
scientific attainments, had been tutor in the house of the Marquis de
G----, a French nobleman known many years before to the old baronet. The
marquis and his family had been among the first emigres at the outbreak
of the Revolution. The tutor had remained behind; for at that time no
danger appeared to threaten those who pretended to no other aristocracy
than that of letters. Contrary, as he said, with repentant modesty, to
his own inclinations, he had been compelled, not only for his own safety,
but for that of his friends, to take some part in the subsequent events
of the Revolution,--a part far from sincere, though so well had he
simulated the patriot that he had won the personal favour and protection
of Robespierre; nor till the fall of that virtuous exterminator had he
withdrawn from the game of politics and effected in disguise his escape
to England. As, whether from kindly or other motives, he had employed
the power of his position in the esteem of Robespierre to save certain
noble heads from the guillotine,--amongst others, the two brothers of the
Marquis de G----, he was received with grateful welcome by his former
patrons, who readily pardoned his career of Jacobinism from their belief
in his excuses and their obligations to the services which that very