He was a miserable-looking object, and still there was something in his appearance which denoted him to be above the common order of beggars.
His eyes were large and intensely black, and his hair, short, thick, and curly, reminded Lenora of her own.

The moment she appeared a peculiar expression passed for a moment over his face, and he half started up; then resuming his seat he fixed his glittering eyes upon the young lady, and seemed watching her closely.
At last she began questioning him, but his answers were so unsatisfactory that she gave it up, and, thinking it the easiest way to be rid of him, she took from her pocket a shilling and handed it to him, saying, "It's all I can give you, unless it is a dinner.

Are you hungry ?" Hester, who had returned to the kitchen, was busy in a distant part of the room, and she did not notice the paleness which overspread Lenora's face at the words which the beggar uttered when, she presented the money to him.

She caught, however, the low murmur of their voices, as they spoke together for a moment, and as Lenora accompanied him to the door, she distinctly heard the words, "In the garden." "And maybe that's some of your kin; you look like him," said she to Lenora, after the stranger was gone.
"That's my business, not yours," answered Lenora, as she left the kitchen and repaired to her mother's room.
"Lenora, what ails you ?" said Mrs.Hamilton to her daughter at the tea-table that night, when, after putting salt in one cup of tea, and upsetting a second, she commenced spreading her biscuit with cheese instead of butter.

"What ails you?
What are you thinking about?
You don't seem to know any more what you are doing than the dead." Lenora made no direct reply to this, but soon after she said, "Mother, how long has father been dead--my own father I mean ?" "Two or three years, I don't exactly know which," returned her mother, and Lenora continued: "How did he look?
I hardly remember him." "You have asked me that fifty times," answered her mother, "and fifty times I have told you that he looked like you, only worse, if possible." "Let me see, where did you say he died ?" said Lenora.
"In New Orleans, with yellow fever, or black measles, or smallpox, or something," Mrs.Hamilton replied, "but mercy's sake! can't you choose a better subject to talk about?
What made you think of him?
He's been haunting me all day, and I feel kind of nervous and want to look over my shoulder whenever I am alone." Lenora made no further remark until after tea, when she announced her intention of going to the village.
"Come back early, for I don't feel like staying alone," said her mother.
The sun had set when Lenora left the village, and by the time she reached home it was wholly dark.