Miserable supper-lovers that we are, like the native Indians of America, a scattered and daily disappearing race, we wander among strange customs, and behold the innovating and invading Dinner spread gradually over the very space of time in which the majesty of Supper once reigned undisputed and supreme! O, ye heavens, be kind, And feel, thou earth, for this afflicted race .-- WORDSWORTH.
As he was sitting down to the table, Clarence's notice was arrested by a somewhat suspicious and unpleasing occurrence.

The supper room was on the ground floor, and, owing to the heat of the weather, one of the windows, facing the small garden, was left open.

Through this window Clarence distinctly saw the face of a man look into the room for one instant, with a prying and curious gaze, and then as instantly disappear.

As no one else seemed to remark this incident, and the general attention was somewhat noisily engrossed by the subject of conversation, Clarence thought it not worth while to mention a circumstance for which the impertinence of any neighbouring servant or drunken passer-by might easily account.

An apprehension, however, of a more unpleasant nature shot across him, as his eye fell upon the costly plate which Talbot rather ostentatiously displayed, and then glanced to the single and aged servant, who was, besides his master, the only male inmate of the house.