thin me this
mysterious interest in the name "Aurore?"

I was not allowed time to reflect, or question Scipio farther. At that
moment the door was darkened by the entrance of two men; who, without
saying a word, stepped inside the apartment.

"Da doctor, mass'r," whispered Scipio, falling back, and permitting the
gentlemen to approach.

Of the two it was not difficult to tell which was the "doctor." The
professional face was unmistakeable: and I knew that the tall pale man,
who regarded me with interrogative glance, was a disciple of Esculapius,
as certainly as if he had carried his diploma in one hand and his
door-plate in the other.

He was a man of forty, not ill-featured, though the face was not one
that would be termed handsome. It was, however, interesting, from a
quiet intellectuality that characterised it, as well as an habitual
expression of kind feeling. It had been a German face some two or three
generations before, but an American climate,--political, I mean,--had
tamed down the rude lines produced by ages of European despotism, and
had almost restored it to its primitive nobility of feature.
Afterwards, when better acquainted with American types, I should have
known it as a Pennsylvanian face, and such in reality it was. I saw
before me a graduate of one of the great medical schools of
Philadelphia, Dr Edward Reigart. The name confirmed my suspicion of
German origin.

Altogether my medical attendant made a pleasing impression upon me at
first sight.

How different was that I received on glancing toward his companion--
antagonism, hatred, contempt, disgust! A face purely French;--not that
noble French face we see in the Duguesclins, the Jean Barts, and among
many of the old Huguenot heroes; and in modern days in a Rollin, a Hugo,
an Arago, or a Pyat;--but such an one as you may see any day by hundreds
sneaking around the Bourse or the _coulisses_ of the Opera, or in
thousands scowling from under a shako in the ranks of a ruffian
soldiery. A countenance that I cannot describe better than by saying
that its features forcibly reminded me of those of a fox. I am not in
jest. I observed this resemblance plainly. I observed the same
obliquity of eyes, the same sharp quick glance that betokened the
presence of deep dissimulation, of utter selfishness, of cruel
inhumanity.

In the Doctor's companion I beheld a type of this face,--the fox in
human form, and with all the attributes of this animal