Harry began to eat. Charles Hadley ceased an anxious examination of his
plate and looked at her. Lady Waverton cried out: "Dear Alison! Don't
tell me you have been stopped. Too terrible! I vow I could never bear it.
I should die of shame. They tell me these rogues are vilely impudent to a
fine woman."

Geoffrey exhibited a tender agitation. "Why, Alison, what is it? Zounds,
I cannot have you go travelling alone! You must give me news when you
make a journey, and I'll ride with you."

"Thank you for your agonies. But the virgin in distress found her
knight-errant duly provided. He rose out of the mud romantically apropos.
To be sure, I think he was mad. But that is all in the part. The complete
hero. Geoffrey, could you be a little mad?"

"More than a little," said he with proper ardour. "Pray don't torture us,
Alison. Let us hear."

"It's on my mind that I am going to hear news of my funny friend," said
Hadley solemnly. "Don't you think so, Mr. Boyce?"

Harry, who had been eating with the humble zeal appropriate to a poor
scholar, looked up for a moment: "Why, sir, I can't tell at all. If you
say so, indeed--" and he went on eating.

"Come, are you in it too, Mr. Hadley?" Alison cried.

"In it, odds life, I am bewilderingly out of it," quoth Hadley, and again
told his tale of the mysterious man found tied up in the mud who knew