“Let them come of all hospitality,” returned the Alderman, heartily; “I warrant me, they are honest farmers from the interior, a-hungered with the toil of the night. Go tell the cook to feed them with the best, and bid them welcome. And harkee, boy;—if there be among them any comfortable yeoman, bid the man enter and sit at our table. This is not a country, Patroon, to be nice about the quality of the cloth a man has on his back, or whether he wears a wig or only his own hair.—What is the fellow gaping at?” Erasmus rubbed his eyes, and then showing his teeth to the full extent of a double row, that glittered like pearls, he gave his master to understand, that the negro, introduced to the reader under the name of Euclid, and who was certainly his own brother of the half-blood, or by the mother’s side, was entering the villa. The intelligence caused a sudden cessation of the masticating process in the Alderman, who had not, however, time to express his wonder ere two doors simultaneously opened, and François presented himself at the one, while the shining and doubting face of the slave from town darkened the other. The eyes of Myndert rolled first to this side and then to that, a certain misgiving of the heart preventing him from speaking to either; for he saw, in the disturbed features of each, omens that bade him prepare himself for unwelcome tidings. The reader will perceive, by the description we shall give that there was abundant reason for the sagacious burgher’s alarm. The visage of the valet, at all times meagre and long, seemed extended to far more than its usual dimensions, the under jaw appearing fallen and trebly attenuated. The light-blue protruding eyes were open to the utmost, and they expressed a certain confused wildness, that was none the less striking, for the painful expression of mental suffering, with which it was mingled. Both hands were raised, with the palms outward; while the shoulders of the poor fellow were elevated so high, as entirely to destroy the little symmetry that Nature had bestowed on that particular part of his frame. On the other hand, the look of the negro was guilty, dogged, and cunning. His eye leered askance, seeming to wish to play around the person of his master, as, it will be seen, his language endeavored to play around his understanding. The hands crushed the crown of a woollen hat between their fingers, and one of his feet described semicircles with its toe, by performing nervous evolutions on its heel. “Well!” ejaculated Myndert, regarding each in turn. “What news from the Canadas?—Is the Queen dead, or has she restored the colony to the United Provinces?” “Mam’selle Alide!” exclaimed, or rather groaned, François. “The poor dumb beast!—” muttered Euclid.