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 a sinister kind, but now his eyes wore a malignant aspect, which not only aroused the youth’s indignant retort through the same medium, but struck him as indicating a feeling of hatred to himself of a most singular character.  Meeting the look of the youth, the stranger rose hurriedly and left the table, but still lingered in the apartment.  Ralph was struck with his features, which it appeared to him he had seen before, but as the person wore around his cheeks, encompassing his head, a thick handkerchief, it was impossible for him to decide well upon them.  He turned to Forrester, who was busily intent upon the dissection of a chicken, and in a low tone inquired the name of the stranger.  The woodman looked up and replied—­

“Who that?—­that’s Guy Rivers; though what he’s got his head tied up for, I can’t say.  I’ll ask him;” and with the word, he did so.

In answer to the question, Rivers explained his bandaging by charging his jaws to have caught cold rather against his will, and to have swelled somewhat in consequence.  While making this reply, Ralph again caught his glance, still curiously fixed upon himself, with an expression which again provoked his surprise, and occasioned a gathering sternness in the look of fiery indignation which he sent back in return.

Rivers, immediately after this by-play, left the apartment.  The eye of Ralph changing its direction, beheld that of the young maiden observing him closely, with an expression of countenance so anxious, that he felt persuaded she must have beheld the mute intercourse, if so we may call it, between himself and the person whose conduct had so ruffled him.  The color had fled from her cheek, and there was something of warning in her gaze.  The polish and propriety which had distinguished her manners so far as he had seen, were so different from anything that he had been led to expect, and reminded him so strongly of another region, that, rising from the table, he approached the place where she sat, took a chair beside her, and with a gentleness and ease, the due result of his own education and of the world he had lived in, commenced a conversation with her, and was pleased to find himself encountered by a modest freedom of opinion, a grace of thought, and a general intelligence, which promised him better company than he had looked for.  The villagers had now left the apartment, all but Forrester; who,