comparatively quiet and deserted.  Having kept guard like a sentinel for more than half an hour, I returned in no very good humour, with the punctuality of an expected inmate—­ordered the servant to draw the curtains and secure the hall-door; and so my wife and I sate down to our disconsolate cup of tea.  It must have been about ten o’clock, and we were both sitting silently—­she working, I looking moodily into a paper—­and neither of us any longer entertaining a hope that anything but disappointment would come of the matter, when a sudden tapping, very loud and sustained, upon the window pane, startled us both in an instant from our reveries.

I am not sure whether I mentioned before that the sitting-room we occupied was upon the ground-floor, and the sward came close under the window.  I drew the curtains, and opened the shutters with a revived hope; and looking out, saw a very tall thin figure, a good deal wrapped up, standing about a yard before me, and motioning with head and hand impatiently towards the hall-door.  Though the night was clear, there was no moon, and therefore I could see no more than the black outline, like that of an ombre chinoise figure, signing to me with mop and moe.  In a moment I was at the hall-door, candle in hand; the stranger stept in—­his long fingers clutched in the handle of a valise, and a bag which trailed upon the ground behind him.

The light fell full upon him.  He wore a long, ill-made, black surtout, buttoned across, and which wrinkled and bagged about his lank figure; his hat was none of the best, and rather broad in the brim; a sort of white woollen muffler enveloped the lower part of his face; a pair of prominent green goggles, fenced round with leather, completely concealed his eyes; and nothing of the genuine man, but a little bit of yellow forehead, and a small transverse segment of equally yellow cheek and nose, encountered the curious gaze of your humble servant.

“You are—­I suppose”—­I began; for I really was a little doubtful about my man.

“Mr. Smith—­the same; be good enough to show me to my bedchamber,” interrupted the stranger, brusquely, and in a tone which, spite of the muffler that enveloped his mouth, was sharp and grating enough.

“Ha!—­Mr. Smith—­so I supposed.  I hope you may find everything as comfortable as we desire to make it—­”

I was about making a speech, but was cut short by a slight bow, and a decisive gesture of the hand in the direction of the staircase.  It was plain that the stranger hated ceremony.

Together, accordingly, we mounted the staircase; he still pulling his luggage after him, and striding lightly up without articulating a word; and on reaching his bedroom, he immediately removed his hat, showing a sinister, black scratch-wig underneath, and then began unrolling the mighty woolen wrapping of his mouth and chin.

“Come,” thought I, “we shall see something of your face after all.”