any one in your condition. But
come; there lie your clothes--a brown crust and a draught of milk wait
you, if you choose to break your fast; but you must make haste.'

'I must first,' I said, 'take the freedom to spend a few minutes alone,
before beginning the ordinary works of the day.'

'Oh!--umph!--I cry your devotions pardon,' he replied, and left the
apartment.

Alan, there is something terrible about this man.

I joined him, as I had promised, in the kitchen where we had supped
overnight, where I found the articles which he had offered me for
breakfast, without butter or any other addition.

He walked up and down while I partook of the bread and milk; and the
slow measured weighty step seemed identified with those which I had
heard last night. His pace, from its funereal slowness, seemed to keep
time with some current of internal passion, dark, slow, and unchanged.
'We run and leap by the side of a lively and bubbling brook,' thought I,
internally, 'as if we would run a race with it; but beside waters deep,
slow, and lonely, our pace is sullen and silent as their course. What
thoughts may be now corresponding with that furrowed brow, and bearing
time with that heavy step?'

'If you have finished,' said he, looking up to me with a glance of
impatience, as he observed that I ate no longer, but remained with my
eyes fixed upon him, 'I wait to show you the way.'

We went out together, no individual of the family having been visible
excepting my landlord. I was disappointed of the opportunity which I
watched for of giving some gratuity to the domestics, as they seemed to
be. As for offering any recompense to the master of the household, it
seemed to me impossible to have attempted it.

What would I have given for a share of thy composure, who wouldst have
thrust half a crown into a man's hand whose necessities seemed to crave
it, conscious that you did right in making the proffer, and not caring
sixpence whether you hurt the feelings of him whom you meant to serve!
I saw thee once give a penny to a man with a long beard, who, from the
dignity of his exterior, might have represented Solon. I had not thy
courage, and therefore I made no tender to my mysterious host, although,
notwithstanding his display of silver utensils, all around the house
bespoke narrow circumstances, if not actual poverty.

We left the place together. But I hear thee murmur thy very new and
appropriate ejaculation, OHE, JAM SATIS!--The r