thus suggested. As his mind acquired
strength, however, they became a source of endless amusement.
Innumerable stories grew out of them: romances, whose adventures
embraced every land and sea; and his excited imagination revelled in
inventing trials and miseries for some, while for others he sought out
every possible escape from disaster. His solitude had no need of either
companionship or books; his mind, stimulated by these sketches, could
invent unweariedly, so that, at last, he really lived in an ideal world,
peopled with daring adventurers, and abounding in accidents by flood and
field.

One day, as Gerald lay musing on his bed of chestnut-leaves, the door of
his room was opened quietly, and a large, powerfully-built man entered.
He walked with noiseless steps forward, placed a chair in front of
Gerald, and sat down. The boy gazed steadfastly at him, and so they
remained a considerable time, each staring fixedly at the other. To one
who, like Gerald, had passed weeks in weaving histories from the looks
and expressions of the faces around him, the features on which he now
gazed might well excite interest. Never was there, perhaps, a face in
which adverse and conflicting passions were more palpably depicted. A
noble and massive head, covered with a profusion of black hair, rose
from temples of exquisite symmetry, greatly indented at either side, and
forming the walls of two orbits of singular depth. His eyes were large,
dark, and lustrous, the expression usually sad. Here, however, ended all
that indicated good in the face. The nose was short, with wide expanded
nostrils, and the mouth large, coarse, and sensual; but the lower jaw,
which was of enormous breadth, and projected forward, gave a character
of actual ferocity that recalled the image of a wild boar. The whole
meaning of the face was power--power and indomitable will. Whatever he
meditated of good or evil, you could easily predict that nothing could
divert him from attempting; and there was in the carriage of his head,
all his gestures, and his air, the calm self-possession of one that
seemed to say to the world, 'I defy you.'

As Gerald gazed in a sort of fascination at these strange features, he
was almost startled by the tone of a voice so utterly unlike what he
was prepared for. The stranger spoke in a low, deep strain of exquisite
modulation, and with that peculiar mellowness of accent that seems to
leave its echo in the heart after it. He had merely a