"We look for him very shortly," said the
lesser John.

"To-day?"

"In four months," said John, cheerfully.

The traveller turned his sunken eyes upon
them, for a moment, in silence. Then, as
suddenly resolved, he said:

"Good. I'll wait for him."

"Thee has more patience than I should have
believed of thee," remarked the plain-spoken
Adam. "Wait four months to have thy poor
beast shod, rather than put him to pain? I
stand rebuked before thee."

"The place seems quiet as the grave," the
stranger remarked, looking up and down the
little street, in which no sign of life was visible.
"I need repose and stillness. Is there any
house of entertainment or lodging in this—
what d'ye call it? — Holyton?"

Inn there was none. As for lodging——
Adam hesitated, for he knew that Dorcas
Hodgkin had conceived the idea of accepting
an inmate, could such be found, in preference
to abandoning her much-cherished home. Yet
something seemed to whisper him that the
strange, pale pilgrim, who wanted repose and
stillness, would not prove an eligible tenant.
Nevertheless, the conscientious Adam could not
deny that the prettiest cottage in the place
stood in need of a lodger; and, as the stranger,
noticing his hesitation, pressed him on the
subject, but a few minutes elapsed before Mrs.
Hodgkin had to descend and give audience to
an unexpected visitor.

No record of the dialogue was preserved,
excepting that the stranger, on learning the
proposed rent, produced a bundle of notes, and
was with difficulty prevented from paying two
years in advance. With regard to references,
he had observed that, though he was not in
the habit of carrying about his character in his
pocket, he would obtain one, by an early post
from the metropolis, of such a nature as to
occasion the most poignant regret to the Friends
among whom he hoped henceforth to sojourn,
that he did not actually belong to their
fraternity.

Gentle Dorcas Hodgkin thought little of the
scarcely covert sneer, for, strange to say, the
face and manner that had so unfavourably
impressed neighbour Purslet, had, upon her, the
precisely opposite effect. She saw, in her
intending lodger, a man aged before his time by
mental and bodily ills of no common kind. His
soft voice and most melancholy smile conveyed,
she thought, an appeal for that sympathy only
the more precious to haughty natures, because
it is not sought in words. Even his curious
hollow laugh exacted pity, for it told of some
thing about the chest and lungs which might
require more than repose and solitude to set it
right.

Thus it came to pass that the stranger, who
announced that his name was Lopré, took up
his abode at Tabernacle Lodge, and began,
without delay, to reap opinions of the most
auriferous nature from all sorts of men. His
merit, it must be admitted, was of a negative
character. He bore himself like a man of
breeding, and he did no harm. Some baggage,
including sundry huge brown books secured
with brazen clasps, arrived from southwards,
and the bringer took back Monsieur Lopré's
horse, to be sold, for what he would fetch, at a
neighbouring fair.

Monsieur Lopré, who was French in nothing
but his name, turned out, in fact, the pearl of
lodgers. He gave so little trouble, that Dorcas
felt almost dissatisfied. There was no channel
of approach by which she and little Ruth — her
mother's active and interested ally — could
make known to the solitary man the sympathy
they felt for his evidently failing health and
broken spirits. He ate little, and drank less.
A slice of brown bread and a cup of cream for
breakfast, an omelette or a couple of rashers of
farm-bacon for dinner, appeared to be the objects
of his choice; but if, for these, a dish of tomtits
or a stewed squirrel had been substituted,
Dorcas felt, with a heavy heart, that her
lodger would have accomplished his meal with
unchanged indifference. His time seemed to
be about equally divided between eager study
of his mighty books and meditative wanderings—
sometimes protracted far into the night — among
the dense neglected woods that, beginning just
without the village, clothed the adjacent slopes
for miles around.

Some weeks had elapsed in this fashion, when
Dorcas's interest in her singular guest was
increased by hearing, as she fancied, sounds of
deep distress issuing from his chamber. This
occurred more and more frequently; and, though
it was manifest to the listener that every effort
was being made by the unhappy man to
suppress these tokens of suffering, it was equally
clear that his anguish, whatever its nature,
could not be tamed to silence. At such times
he would move about the room for an hour
together, until, apparently exhausted, he would
sink heavily upon the couch, when choking sobs
and half-articulate ejaculation bore testimony
to the tempest that continued to rage within.

On one of these occasions — it was about
noon — Dorcas was passing his door, when an
exclamation struck her ear, having so much the
tone of actual corporal suffering, that, acting
upon womanly impulse, she opened the door
and went in.

Lopré was seated at the table, reading. He
had one of his great books open before him,
over which, as she entered, he spread his
handkerchief, and he gazed at Dorcas with an air of
indifferent question, so well and hastily assumed,
that, but for his still quivering lip and the
drops that stood upon his brow, she might have
fancied her ears had been deceived. As it was,
murmuring an apology, she withdrew.

Ruth could not scold her mother; but she
did hazard the undutiful remark that, had she
been in that mother's place, she would have
ventured more.

Ruth was a very pretty little damsel of ten,
beyond her years in intelligence, and the most