"To the lady with the black mantle."
"Hold, she is all innocence and purity."
"Innocence and purity! Eve was innocent and pure too! yea, and surpassingly beautiful! but she fell! Alas! her daughters are like her."
"Come, sir," said Chevillere, with some exasperation, "let us put a stop to this discourse; it is not pleasing to me, and I feel sure it is not useful to you."
"Be it so," said the intruder, drawing up his long goat's-hair cloak, and pulling a flat cloth cap closely over his gray locks, as they for a moment became visible by the reflection of the long horizontal rays of a lamp from the deck of a neighbouring vessel; "be it so, sir; there is no convincing a child that a beautiful candle will burn until it scorches its fingers."
"In God's name, then, out with it, sir! what is it that seems to burn so upon your tongue? come, out with it!" said Chevillere, sharply.
"For what do you take me, young man? a gossip or a stripling! I am neither one nor the other; I am old enough to be your father; as well born and as well educated as he ever was; and (notwithstanding your southern blood and aristocratic notions) it may be as proud; farewell, sir, and the next time I offer to pull you from the edge of a precipice, perhaps you will listen with more respect to one of double your age, who can have no interest in deceiving you. Farewell, sir!"
"Stay! stay! a moment,—one word more. Did you not visit Washington's monument three days ago, and see me there for the first time?"
"I could answer either yes or no to that question. How do you know, sir, that we have not met before, centuries ago? Do you not sometimes foresee a whole scene, just as it afterward takes place? Do you not sometimes look upon a strange face with a shudder? Does not a feature—a smile—or an expression of them combined—sometimes awake the slumbering memory of ages? Is it not so? have you never communed with the dead?"
"Never, sir."