This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom it
describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a
yielding, an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as
he now sat, there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his
brow, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within either
restless, or hard, or eager. He did not speak to me one word, nor
even direct to me one glance, till his sisters returned. Diana, as
she passed in and out, in the course of preparing tea, brought me a
little cake, baked on the top of the oven.
"Eat that now," she said: "you must be hungry. Hannah says you
have had nothing but some gruel since breakfast."
I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Mr.
Rivers now closed his book, approached the table, and, as he took a
seat, fixed his blue pictorial-looking eyes full on me. There was
an unceremonious directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in
his gaze now, which told that intention, and not diffidence, had
hitherto kept it averted from the stranger.
"You are very hungry," he said.
"I am, sir." It is my way--it always was my way, by instinct--ever
to meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness.
"It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for
the last three days: there would have been danger in yielding to
the cravings of your appetite at first. Now you may eat, though
still not immoderately."
"I trust I shall not eat long at your expense, sir," was my very
clumsily-contrived, unpolished answer.
"No," he said coolly: "when you have indicated to us the residence
of your friends, we can write to them, and you may be restored to
home."
"That, I must plainly tell you, is out of my power to do; being
absolutely without home and friends."
The three looked at me, but not distrustfully; I felt there was no
suspicion in their glances: there was more of curiosity. I speak
particularly of the young ladies. St. John's eyes, though clear
enough in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to
fathom. He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other
people's thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which
combination of keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated
to embarrass than to encourage.
"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you are completely isolated
from every connection?"