traordinary, still could those effects continue
when the operator himself was dead? and if the spell had been wrought,
and, indeed, the room walled up, more than seventy years ago, the
probability was, that the operator had long since departed this life";
Mr J----, I say, was thus answering, when I caught hold of his arm and
pointed to the street below.

A well-dressed man had crossed from the opposite side, and was accosting
the carrier in charge of the van. His face, as he stood, was exactly
fronting our window. It was the face of the miniature we had discovered;
it was the face of the portrait of the noble three centuries ago.

"Good Heavens!" cried Mr J----, "that is the face of de V----, and
scarcely a day older than when I saw it in the Rajah's court in my
youth!"

Seized by the same thought, we both hastened downstairs. I was first in
the street; but the man had already gone. I caught sight of him,
however, not many yards in advance, and in another moment I was by his
side.

I had resolved to speak to him, but when I looked into his face I felt
as if it were impossible to do so. That eye--the eye of the
serpent--fixed and held me spellbound. And withal, about the man's whole
person there was a dignity, an air of pride and station and superiority,
that would have made anyone, habituated to the usages of the world,
hesitate long before venturing upon a liberty or impertinence. And what
could I say? what was it I would ask? Thus ashamed of my first impulse,
I fell a few paces back, still, however, following the stranger,
undecided what else to do. Meanwhile he turned the corner of the street;
a plain carriage was in waiting, with a servant out of livery, dressed
like a _valet-de-place_, at the carriage door. In another moment he had
stepped into the carriage, and it drove off. I returned to the house. Mr
J---- was still at the street door. He had asked the carrier what the
stranger had said to him.

"Merely asked whom that house now belonged to."

The same evening I happened to go with a friend to a place in town
called the Cosmopolitan Club, a place open to men of all countries, all
opinions, all degrees. One orders one's coffee, smokes one's cigar. One
is always sure to meet agreeable, sometimes remarkable, persons.

I had not been two minutes in the room before I beheld at a table,
conversing with an acquaintance of mine, whom I will designate by the
initial G----, the man--the Original of the Miniature.