"Hush, hush!" I cried; "you do not know how wildly you are talking."

The old man stared at me, shook his head, released my arm, and strode
away.

A labouring man came out of the garden, and having unbuckled the
saddle-bags, which contained the few things required for so short a visit,
I consigned my horse to his care, and ascended the perron. The old
housekeeper met me in the hall, and conducted me up the great staircase,
showed me into a bedroom prepared for me, and told me that Mr. Strahan was
already waiting dinner for me. I should find him in the study. I
hastened to join him. He began apologizing, very unnecessarily, for the
state of his establishment. He had as yet engaged no new servants. The
housekeeper with the help of a housemaid did all the work.

Richard Strahan at college had been as little distinguishable from other
young men as a youth neither rich nor poor, neither clever nor stupid,
neither handsome nor ugly, neither audacious sinner nor formal saint,
possibly could be.

Yet, to those who understood him well, he was not without some of those
moral qualities by which a youth of mediocre intellect often matures into
a superior man.

He was, as Sir Philip had been rightly informed, thoroughly honest and
upright. But with a strong sense of duty, there was also a certain latent
hardness. He was not indulgent. He had outward frankness with
acquaintances, but was easily roused to suspicion. He had much of the
thriftiness and self-denial of the North countryman, and I have no doubt