Eh?
Lilacs and pretty faces, Nat! Ho, ho!--You will stay a week, won't you, Nat ?" He spoke so rapidly and his face underwent so many changes, now betraying the keenest excitement, now wrinkled in an ogreish, bantering grin, now almost pleading in its earnestness, that Nathaniel knew not what to make of him.

He looked into the beady eyes, sparkling with passion, and the cat-like glitter of them set his blood tingling.

What strange adventure was this old man dragging him into?
What were the motives, the reasoning, the plot that lay behind this mysterious creature's apparent faith in him?
He tried to answer these things in the passing of a moment before he replied.

The councilor saw his hesitancy and smiled.
"I will show you many things of interest, Nat," he said.

"I will show you just one to-night.