face,’ said the old gentleman to himself as he walked slowly away, tapping his chin with the cover of the book, in a thoughtful manner; ‘something that touches and interests me. Can he be innocent? He looked like — Bye the bye,’ exclaimed the old gentleman, halting very abruptly, and staring up into the sky, ‘Bless my soul! — where have I seen something like that look before?’

After musing for some minutes, the old gentleman walked, with the same meditative face, into a back anteroom opening from the yard; and there, retiring into a corner, called up before his mind’s eye a vast amphitheatre of faces over which a dusky curtain had hung for many years. ‘No,’ said the old gentleman, shaking his head; ‘it must be imagination.’