He possessed that ready adaptability to circumstances which is often an attribute of the highest birth.

The motherly heart of Mistress Devenish went out to him at once, and she would fain have known something of his history, and how it came that so fair and gentle a youth was wandering thus alone in the wide world.
Paul had told her all his story without the least reserve; but this kinsman of his was more reticent, and if asked a question, contrived to turn the edge off it without appearing to avoid giving a direct answer.

But Mistress Devenish was acute enough to perceive that he did not intend to speak of his own past; and noting the unconscious deference paid by Paul to one whom seniority would have given him the right to dictate to and lead, she came to the conclusion that, kinsfolk or no, the newcomer was of a more exalted rank than his comrade, and that some romantic history attached to him, as it did only too often, to wanderers in those days.

Her interest in him only deepened as she reached this conclusion, and she wished that she knew how to help the two lonely youths whose fates seemed now to be linked together.
Supper was in course, and the whole party assembled round the table, when a knock at the outer door, heralded by a great barking of dogs without, caused one of the men to start to his feet; whilst Joan turned red and pale, as she had had a trick of doing of late; and the farmer looked a trifle uneasy, as a man may do who is half afraid of some domestic visitation of an unpleasing kind.
But when the door was opened, brows cleared and anxious looks vanished; for the visitor was none other than the peddler of a few days back, who, contrary to custom, had paid a second visit to the village within a week of the first.
"Good even, good folks," he said, stepping in with his heavy bags, which he deposited with a grunt upon the floor.

"You will wonder to see me so soon again, but I was turned from my course by the breaking down of the bridge at Terling, and so I thought I would tramp back the way I had come.