The evening passed pleasantly to all but Mr. Edson, who sat like a pantomime in a play, staring and grinning at what he could not understand or digest. Col. Malcome seemed, however, to take a malicious pleasure in placing his guest in the most awkward positions, and showing off his own superior grace and polish to the best advantage. If anything, he rather overdone. But perhaps he thought with Mrs. Salsify Mumbles in this case, "Better overshoot than fall short." Louise was graceful and self-possessed as usual; and it must be confessed did not appear very much disconcerted when Col. M. showed her husband in some ridiculous light, or mercilessly uncurtained his crude, narrow-minded opinions and ideas.
Scorn and contempt for the man she had married were fast mastering all kinder feelings she once had toward him.
CHAPTER XVI.
"I bid you leave the girl, and think no more
About her from henceforth."
"Ah, I can leave
Her, sire;—but to forget will be, I fear,
A thing beyond my power."
It was midsummer, and the Hermit of the Cedars sat under his low piazza, curiously constructed of the enwreathed boughs and branches of evergreen trees. He held a volume in his attenuated hand, with the contents of which, he seemed intently occupied. His appearance was melancholy in the extreme. A pale, thin face;—deep sunken eyes, and a broad, high brow, by sorrow seamed with furrows long and wide; for she doth ever dig with deeper, harsher hand than time. A loose linen garment was wrapped around his tall, gaunt form, and a white handkerchief tied over his head to prevent the passing breezes from blowing his thin, straggling gray hair about his features.
So intent was he on the contents of his book that he did not notice the approach of the cheerer of his solitude. Edgar came along the narrow path with a step quicker and more impatient than was his wont, and there was an expression on his fine, manly face which had something of mortification and anger, but more of regret and sorrow. He threw his satchel on the ground, and sat down at the hermit's feet, who laid aside his volume, on beholding him in that position, and asked him if he was fatigued or ill.