The poor man appeared, on being informed a gentleman wanted to speak to him, with some expression of surprise in his gaunt features, to which recent sorrow had given an expression yet more grisly.

He made two or three profound reverences to Mannering, and then, standing erect, patiently waited an explanation of his commands.
'You are probably at a loss to guess, Mr.Sampson,' said Mannering, 'what a stranger may have to say to you ?' 'Unless it were to request that I would undertake to train up some youth in polite letters and humane learning; but I cannot--I cannot; I have yet a task to perform.' 'No, Mr.Sampson, my wishes are not so ambitious.

I have no son, and my only daughter, I presume, you would not consider as a fit pupil.' 'Of a surety no,' replied the simple-minded Sampson.

'Nathless, it was I who did educate Miss Lucy in all useful learning, albeit it was the housekeeper who did teach her those unprofitable exercises of hemming and shaping.' 'Well, sir,' replied Mannering, 'it is of Miss Lucy I meant to speak.

You have, I presume, no recollection of me ?' Sampson, always sufficiently absent in mind, neither remembered the astrologer of past years, nor even the stranger who had taken his patron's part against Glossin, so much had his friend's sudden death embroiled his ideas.
'Well, that does not signify,' pursued the Colonel; 'I am an old acquaintance of the late Mr.Bertram, able and willing to assist his daughter in her present circumstances.