A small wood fire was crackling in one of those old-fashioned country grates, and beside it was seated a strikingly handsome young man, who was reading earnestly out of a fat little book.

He had an oval, olive-tinted face, with long black hair, ungathered in a queue, and there was something of the poet or of the artist in his whole appearance.

The sight of that refined face, and of the warm yellow firelight which beat upon it, was a very cheering one to a cold and famished traveller.

I stood for an instant gazing at him, and noticing the way in which his full and somewhat loose-fitting lower lip quivered continually, as if he were repeating to himself that which he was reading.

I was still looking at him when he put his book down upon the table and approached the window.