disrespectful to his superiors? Wasn't he always found out at his
wildest for to be right--to a sensible man's way of thinking?--though
not, I grant ye, to his own interests--there's another tale." And Mr.
Billing's staunch adherence to the hero of the village was cried out to
his credit when Sedgett stated, on Stephen Bilton's authority, that
Robert's errand was the defence of a girl who had been wronged, and whose
whereabout, that she might be restored to her parents, was all he wanted
to know. This story passed from mouth to mouth, receiving much ornament
in the passage. The girl in question became a lady; for it is required
of a mere common girl that she should display remarkable character before
she can be accepted as the fitting companion of a popular hero. She
became a young lady of fortune, in love with Robert, and concealed by the
artifice of the offending gentleman whom Robert had challenged. Sedgett
told this for truth, being instigated to boldness of invention by
pertinacious inquiries, and the dignified sense which the whole story
hung upon him.

Mrs. Boulby, who, as a towering woman, despised Sedgett's weak frame, had
been willing to listen till she perceived him to be but a man of fiction,
and then she gave him a flat contradiction, having no esteem for his
custom.

"Eh! but, Missis, I can tell you his name--the gentleman's name," said
Sedgett, placably. "He's a Mr. Algernon Blancove, and a cousin by
marriage, or something, of Mrs. Lovell."

"I reckon you're right about that, goodman," replied Mrs. Boulby, with
intuitive discernment of the true from the false, mingled with a desire
to show that she was under no obligation for the news. "All t' other's a
tale of your own, and you know it, and no more true than your rigmaroles