The stranger attracted the attention of my wife to an equal degree with mine. I observed her, as she had occasion, on household cares intent, to pass in and out of the parlour, frequently look at him, as one may suppose Eve did at the affable angel with Adam; indeed it was impossible to see him without feeling the excitement of some sentiment allied to reverence, or to hear him speak, and not be affected by admiration at the gentleness of his voice, and the beautiful brevity of his expressions: even Mrs. Corbet, who in language was nothing critical, remarked to me, after he had departed, that he spoke like a play-actor in a tragedy, and completed her description by one of the most original similes extant.

“What can he be?” said she; “for my part, I think if he is not a Centaur, he's something very like one on my father's Etruscan vase, half a heathen god, and half a horse. You cannot look at his countenance without awe, and his hands are as grim and hard as hoofs;” and she continued, “Men of that kind, I have heard my father say, were good schoolmasters of old. I thought you had some design of hiring him for our boys, when I noticed you so waylaying him with your curiosity.”

The idea was more to the purpose than any thing that had occurred to me concerning him; but he was gone, and the night considerably advanced; however, on her suggestion, I sent after him, to request he would either return, or not proceed beyond the tavern on the main road till I could come to him in the mornin