re than one
occasion did Ralph, in the course of the dinner, remark the indignant
fire flashing from her intelligent eye, when the rude speech of some
untaught boor assailed a sense finely-wrought to appreciate the proper
boundaries to the always adventurous footstep of unbridled
licentiousness. The youth felt assured, from these occasional glimpses,
that her education had been derived from a different influence, and that
her spirit deeply felt and deplored the humiliation of her present
condition and abode.

The dinner-table, to which we now come, and which two or three negroes
have been busily employed in cumbering with well-filled plates and
dishes, was most plentifully furnished; though but few of its contents
could properly be classed under the head of delicacies. There were eggs
and ham, hot biscuits, hommony, milk, marmalade, venison, _Johnny_, or
journey cakes, and dried fruits stewed. These, with the preparatory
soup, formed the chief components of the repast. Everything was served
up in a style of neatness and cleanliness, that, after all, was perhaps
the best of all possible recommendations to the feast; and Ralph soon
found himself quite as busily employed as was consistent with prudence,
in the destruction and overthrow of the tower of biscuits, the pile of
eggs, and such other of the edibles around him as were least likely to
prove injurious to his debilitated system.

The table was not large, and the seats were soon occupied. Villager
after villager had made his appearance and taken his place without
calling for observation; and, indeed, so busily were all employed, that
he who should have made his _entree_ at such a time with an emphasis
commanding notice, might, not without reason, have been set down as
truly and indefensibly impertinent. So might one have thought, not
employed in like manner, and simply surveying the prospect.

Forrester alone contrived to be less selfish than those about him, and
our hero found his attentions at times rather troublesome. Whatever in
the estimation of the woodman seemed attractive, he studiously thrust
into the youth's plate, pressing him to eat. Chancing, at one of these
periods of polite provision on the part of his friend, to direct his
glance to the opposite extreme of the table, he was struck with the
appearance of a man whose eyes were fixed upon himself with an
expression which he could not comprehend and did not relish. The look of
this man was naturally of