But it was neither his features nor his form, eminently handsome as they were, which gave the principal charm to the young stranger’s appearance: it was the strikingly bold, buoyant, frank, and almost joyous expression which presided over all. There seemed to dwell the first glow and life of youth, undimmed by a single fear and unbaffled in a single hope. There were the elastic spring, the inexhaustible wealth of energies which defied in their exulting pride the heaviness of sorrow and the harassments of time. It was a face that, while it filled you with some melancholy foreboding of the changes and chances which must, in the inevitable course of fate, cloud the openness of the unwrinkled brow, and soberize the fire of the daring and restless eye, instilled also within you some assurance of triumph, and some omen of success,--a vague but powerful sympathy with the adventurous and cheerful spirit which appeared literally to speak in its expression. It was a face you might imagine in one born under a prosperous star; and you felt, as you gazed, a confidence in that bright countenance, which, like the shield of the British Prince, [Prince Arthur.--See “The Faerie Queene.”] seemed possessed with a spell to charm into impotence the evil spirits who menaced its possessor. “Well, sir,” said his friend, the gypsy, who had in his turn been surveying with admiration the sinewy and agile frame of his young guest, “well, sir, how fares your appetite? Old Dame Bingo will be mortally offended if you do not do ample justice to her good cheer.” “If so,” answered our traveller, who, young as he was, had learnt already the grand secret of making in every situation a female friend, “if so, I shall be likely to offend her still more.” “And how, my pretty master?” said the old crone with an iron smile. “Why, I shall be bold enough to reconcile matters with a kiss, Mrs. Bingo,” answered the youth.