But may I ask to what you allude, madam ?" "You are evidently a gentleman, sir, and a stranger, and we would feel obliged by knowing--" "O, I beg your pardon, madam," he replied, interrupting her; "I presume that you are good enough to flatter me by a wish to know the name of the individual whom your kindness and hospitality have placed under such agreeable obligations.

For my part I have reason to bless the tempest I which, I may say, brought me under your roof.

'It is an ill wind,' says the proverb, 'that blows nobody good;' and it is a clear case, my very kind hostess, that at this moment we are mutually ignorant of each other.

I assure you, then, madam, that I am not a knight-errant travelling in disguise and in quest of adventure, but a plain gentleman, by name Woodward, step-son to a neighbor of yours, Mr.Lindsay, of Rathfillan House.

I need scarcely say that I am Mrs.Lindsay's son by her first husband.