the honour to be only exceedingly confused. With that, I threw myself outright upon her mercy. "Madam, I must be more frank with you," I resumed. "You have already proved your charity and compassion for the French prisoners. I am one of these; and if my appearance be not too much changed, you may even yet recognise in me that Oddity who had the good fortune more than once to make you smile."
Still gazing upon me through her glass, she uttered an uncompromising grunt; and then, turning to her niece—"Flora," said she, "how comes he here?"
The culprits poured out for a while an antiphony of explanations, which died out at last in a miserable silence.
"I think at least you might have told your aunt," she snorted.
"Madam," I interposed, "they were about to do so. It is my fault if it be not done already. But I made it my prayer that your slumbers might be respected, and this necessary formula of my presentation should be delayed until to-morrow in the morning."
The old lady regarded me with undissembled incredulity, to which I was able to find no better repartee than a profound and I trust graceful reverence.
"French prisoners are very well in their place," she said, "but I cannot see that their place is in my private dining-room."
"Madam," said I, "I hope it may be said without offence, but (except the Castle of Edinburgh) I cannot think upon the spot from which I would so readily be absent."
At this, to my relief, I thought I could perceive a vestige of a smile to steal upon that iron countenance and to be bitten immediately in.
"And it it is a fair question, what do they call ye?" she asked.
