Her complexion turned of a beautiful red, which I had never seen in it
before; she brightened all over with a kind of speechless and breathless
surprise. "Who is it?" I asked. Rosanna gave me back my own question.
"Oh! who is it?" she said softly, more to herself than to me. I twisted
round on the sand and looked behind me. There, coming out on us from
among the hills, was a bright-eyed young gentleman, dressed in a
beautiful fawn-coloured suit, with gloves and hat to match, with a rose
in his button-hole, and a smile on his face that might have set the
Shivering Sand itself smiling at him in return. Before I could get on my
legs, he plumped down on the sand by the side of me, put his arm round
my neck, foreign fashion, and gave me a hug that fairly squeezed the
breath out of my body. "Dear old Betteredge!" says he. "I owe you
seven-and-sixpence. Now do you know who I am?"

Lord bless us and save us! Here--four good hours before we expected
him--was Mr. Franklin Blake!

Before I could say a word, I saw Mr. Franklin, a little surprised to all
appearance, look up from me to Rosanna. Following his lead, I looked at
the girl too. She was blushing of a deeper red than ever, seemingly at
having caught Mr. Franklin's eye; and she turned and left us suddenly,
in a confusion quite unaccountable to my mind, without either making her
curtsey to the gentleman or saying a word to me. Very unlike her usual
self: a civiller and better-behaved servant, in general, you never met
with.

"That's an odd girl," says Mr. Franklin. "I wonder what she sees in me
to surprise her?"

"I suppose, sir," I answered, drolling on our young gentleman's