My coffee was excellent; I told him so, and expressed the shuddering pity with which his anchorite fare inspired me.

He did not answer, and I scarcely think heard my remark.

At that moment one of those momentary eclipses I before alluded to had come over his face, extinguishing his smile, and replacing, by an abstracted and alienated look, the customarily shrewd, bantering glance of his eye.

I employed the interval of silence in a rapid scrutiny of his physiognomy.

I had never observed him closely before; and, as my sight is very short, I had gathered only a vague, general idea of his appearance; I was surprised now, on examination, to perceive how small, and even feminine, were his lineaments; his tall figure, long and dark locks, his voice and general bearing, had impressed me with the notion of something powerful and massive; not at all:--my own features were cast in a harsher and squarer mould than his.