from this town: and as I arrived here late in the evening, and knew
that his habits were reserved and peculiar, I thought it better to
take "mine ease in my inn" for this night, and defer my visit to
Mordaunt Court till to-morrow morning. In truth, I was not averse to
renewing an old acquaintance,--not, as you in your malice would
suspect, with my hostess, but with her house. Some years ago, when I
was eighteen, I first made a slight acquaintance with Mordaunt at this
very inn, and now, at twenty-six, I am glad to have one evening to
myself on the same spot, and retrace here all that has since happened
to me.

Now do not be alarmed: I am not going to inflict upon you the unquiet
retrospect with which I have just been vexing myself; no, I will
rather speak to you of my acquaintance and host to be. I have said
that I first met Mordaunt some years since at this inn,--an accident,
for which his horse was to blame, brought us acquainted,--I spent a
day at his house, and was much interested in his conversation; since
then, we did not meet till about two years and a half ago, when we
were in Italy together. During the intermediate interval Mordaunt had
married; lost his property by a lawsuit; disappeared from the world
(whither none knew) for some years; recovered the estate he had lost
by the death of his kinsman's heir, and shortly afterwards by that of
the kinsman himself; and had become a widower, with one only child, a
beautiful little girl of about four years old. He lived in perfect
seclusion, avoided all intercourse with society, and seemed so
perfectly unconscious of having ever seen me before, whenever in our
rides or walks we met, that I could not venture to intrude myself on a
reserve so rigid and unbroken as that which characterized his habits
and life.