Immensee

ON the afternoon of a day late in autumn a well-dressed old gentleman might have been seen slowly coming down the street. He was evidently returning from a long walk, for his shoes, whose broad buckles proclaimed them of a bygone fashion, were covered with dust, and a long, gold-headed walking-stick of bamboo was thrust under one arm. His dark eyes, into which all his long-lost youth seemed to have taken refuge, and which contrasted strangely with his snowy hair, rested with quiet interest upon the objects about him, or wandered to the town that lay before him in the golden haze of sunset. He seemed to be almost a stranger, for but few of the passers-by exchanged greetings with him, although the dark, grave eyes compelled the gaze of most of them. ...