He was interrupted in these thoughts by the sound of steps approaching. All was silent, alas! in the cottage. The door was shut, for it was very cold weather, and no one appeared at a window; there was not a movement of life about. Walter knew that the room in which they lived (_i. e._ the kitchen) looked to the back. The approaching passenger, therefore, did not convey any hopes to his mind, but only annoyed him, making him leave off that silent contemplation of the shrine of his love, which he had elaborately concealed, by a pretended examination of the lichens on the tree. If any one was coming, that pretense, he felt, was not enough, and he accordingly continued his walk very slowly up the hill in order to meet the new-comer whoever he might be. When he came in sight he was not, as Walter had expected, a recognizable figure, but unmistakably a stranger--a man whose dress and appearance were as unlike as possible to anything which belonged to the village. He was a young man, rather undersized, in a coat with a fur collar, a tall hat, a muffler of a bright color, a large cigar, and a stick of the newest fashion. He was indeed all of the newest fashion, fit for Bond Street, and much more like that locality than a village street. Walter was not very learned in Bond Street, but he laughed to himself as he made this conclusion, feeling that Bond Street would not acknowledge such a glass of fashion. The stranger was looking at Crockford’s cottage with a glass stuck in his eye, and a sort of contemptuous examination, which proved that he made a very different estimate of it from that which Walter had just done. When he in his turn heard Walter’s step upon the road, he seemed to wake up to the consciousness of being looked at, in a way which aroused the contempt of the young native. He gave himself various little pulls together, took his cigar from his mouth with an energetic puff, put up his disengaged hand to his cravat with an involuntary movement to arrange something, and settled his shoulders into his coat--gestures corresponding to the little shake and shuffle with which some women prepare themselves to be seen, however elaborate their toilet may have been before. Then he quickened his steps a little to meet Walter, who came toward him slowly, with a quite uncalled-for sentiment of contempt. Why should a youth in knickerbockers, in the rough roads of his native parish, feel himself superior to a gentleman visitor in the apparel of the higher orders, coming (presumably) out of Bond Street? Who can explain this mystery? No doubt it was balanced by a still stronger feeling of the same kind on the other side. The stranger came forward evidently with the intention of asking information. He was a sandy-haired and rather florid young man, with a badly grown mustache and little tufts of colorless beard. His hat was a little on one side, and the hair upon which it was poised glistened and shone. The level sun came in his eyes and made him blink; it threw a light which was not flattering over all his imperfections of color and form.