every son or daughter of woman, however favored with happy fortune,
might, at one sad moment or another, have claimed the privilege of a
stricken heart, to sit down at this table. But, throughout the
feast, it was remarked that the young stranger, Gervayse Hastings,
was unsuccessful in his attempts to catch its pervading spirit. At
any deep, strong thought that found utterance, and which was torn
out, as it were, from the saddest recesses of human consciousness,
he looked mystified and bewildered; even more than the poor idiot,
who seemed to grasp at such things with his earnest heart, and thus
occasionally to comprehend them. The young man's conversation was
of a colder and lighter kind, often brilliant, but lacking the
powerful characteristics of a nature that had been developed by
suffering.

"Sir," said the misanthropist, bluntly, in reply to some observation
by Gervayse Hastings, "pray do not address me again. We have no
right to talk together. Our minds have nothing in common. By what
claim you appear at this banquet I cannot guess; but methinks, to a
man who could say what you have just now said, my companions and
myself must seem no more than shadows flickering on the wall. And
precisely such a shadow are you to us."

The young man smiled and bowed, but, drawing himself back in his
chair, he buttoned his coat over his breast, as if the banqueting-
Ball were growing chill. Again the idiot fixed his melancholy stare
upon the youth, and murmured, "Cold! cold! cold!"

The banquet drew to its conclusion, and the guests departed.
Scarcely had they stepped across the threshold of the hall, when the
scene that had there passed seemed like the vision of a sick fancy,