is, always thrusting herself in the way, and taking other people's
apples to make her own little pie, had defrauded Lenny of his due; and
now Susceptibility, who looks like a shy, blush-faced, awkward Virtue in
her teens--but who, nevertheless, is always engaged in picking the
pockets of her sisters, tried to filch from him his lawful recompense.
The case was perplexing; for the Parson held Susceptibility in great
honor, despite her hypocritical tricks, and did not like to give her a
slap in the face, which might frighten her away forever. So Mr. Dale
stood irresolute, glancing from the sixpence to Lenny, and from Lenny to
the sixpence.

"_Buon giorno_--good day to you," said a voice behind, in an accent
slightly but unmistakably foreign, and a strange-looking figure presented
itself at the stile.

Imagine a tall and exceedingly meager man, dressed in a rusty suit of
black--the pantaloons tight at the calf and ancle, and there forming a
loose gaiter over thick shoes buckled high at the instep; an old cloak,
lined with red, was thrown over one shoulder, though the day was sultry;
a quaint, red, outlandish umbrella, with a carved brass handle, was
thrust under one arm, though the sky was cloudless; a profusion of raven
hair, in waving curls that seemed as fine as silk, escaped from the sides
of a straw-hat of prodigious brim; a complexion sallow and swarthy, and
features which, though not without considerable beauty to the eye of the
artist, were not only unlike what we fair, well-fed, neat-faced
Englishmen are wont to consider comely, but exceedingly like what we are
disposed to regard as awful and Satanic--to wit, a long hooked nose,
sunken cheeks, black eyes, whose piercing brilliancy took something
wizard-like and mystical from the large spectacles through which they
shone; a mouth round which played an ironical smile, and in which a
physiognomist would have remarked singular shrewdness and some closeness,
complete the picture: Imagine this figure, grotesque, peregrinate; and to
the eye of a peasant certainly diabolical, then perch it on the stile in
the midst of those green English fields, and in sight of that primitive
English village; there let it sit straddling, its long legs dangling
down, a short German pipe emitting clouds from one corner of those
sardonic lips, its dark eyes glaring through the spectacles full upon the
Parson, yet askant upon Lenny Fairfield. Lenny Fairfield looked
exceedingly frightened.