BY EMMA C. EMBURY. On a hot sultry afternoon, in the August of 18—, a tall, pale, melancholy-looking gentleman alighted from the stage-coach at the door of the Eagle Tavern, in Buffalo, and, after a few minutes’ conversation with the bar-keeper, was ushered into a handsome private parlor, while his baggage was carried to one of the finest bed-rooms in the house. Perhaps, had the stranger mingled carelessly with the loungers on the piazza, after his arrival, he would have attracted little more attention than the companions of his wearisome journey, for, excepting a slight moustache on his upper lip, there was nothing to distinguish him in external appearance. But his quiet, grave deportment, and the desire for seclusion which he exhibited, excited the curiosity of the news-mongers, and a thousand conjectures concerning him were immediately set afloat. The stranger, however, seemed little disposed to satisfy the spirit of inquiry which prevails so extensively in American hotels; for, after taking possession of his apartments, he appeared no more that evening, and the waiter, who carried to him his supper, could only say that “he was a _real_ gentleman, for he had given him a hard dollar—that he wore a flowered silk dressing-gown and embroidered slippers, and that he was going to stay in Buffalo a month.” The next morning the interest which he had excited extended itself to the no less curious gossips of the gentler sex; and, when the bell rang for dinner, many an eye was turned to the closed door of Room No. 2, in the hope of seeing its inmate emerge from his retirement. They were not doomed to disappointment. After all were seated at table, the stranger glided quietly into the dining-hall, and took his seat at the foot of the well-filled board, apparently unconscious of the piercing glances which were directed towards him. Notwithstanding the profusion of dainties which were officiously offered him by the waiter, whose heart had been won by the “hard dollar” on the previous night, he merely tasted a single dish, and refusing all the luxuries of the dessert, finished his frugal meal with a bit of dry bread and a glass of iced water. His abstemiousness and abstraction of manner excited the attention of every one, and when he silently rose to leave the table, many a glance followed his slowly-receding form. The ladies had not failed to observe his stately figure, his fine aquiline nose, the melancholy softness of his dark eyes, and the beauty of his hands, which were small, white and tapering, as, according to Napoleon and Byron, all aristocratic hands should be. They at once decided that he was a person of some distinction; perhaps an English nobleman incognito, or at least a rich and well-born Southerner. But a week had elapsed before he chose to give any other idea of his rank and station than might be derived from the register of the hotel, where he had inscribed, in a very elegant hand, the name of