“Don’t go away,” said Lady Hallamshire. “I like Matty to introduce all her friends to me; and you two look as if you had known each other a long time,” said the dowager, graciously; for she was pleased, like most women, by Colin’s looks. “One would know him again if one met him,” she added, in an audible aside; “he doesn’t look exactly like everybody else, as most young men do. Who is he, Matty?” And Miss Frankland’s _chaperone_ turned the light of her countenance full upon Colin, quite indifferent to the fact that he had heard one part of her speech quite as well as the other. When a fine lady consents to enter the outer world, it is to be expected that she should behave herself as civilized people do among savages, and the English among the other nations of the world. “Oh, yes! we have known each other a long time,” said Matty, partly with a generous, partly with a mischievous, instinct. “My uncle knows Mr. Campbell’s father very well, and Harry and he and I made acquaintance when we were children. I am sure you must have heard how nearly Harry was drowned once when we were at Kilchurn Castle. It was Mr. Campbell who saved his life.” “Oh!” said Lady Hallamshire; “but I thought that was”--and then she stopped short. Looking at Colin again, her ladyship’s experienced eye perceived that he was not arrayed with that perfection of apparel to which she was accustomed; but at the same moment her eye caught his glowing face, half pleased, half haughty with that pride of lowliness which is of all pride the most defiant. “I am very glad to make Mr. Campbell’s acquaintance,”--she went on so graciously that everybody forgot the pause. “Harry Frankland is a very dear young friend of mine, and we are all very much indebted to his deliverer.” It was just what a distinguished matron would have said in the circumstances in one of Lady Hallamshire’s novels; but, instead of remaining overcome with grateful confusion, as the hero ought to have done, Colin made an immediate reply. “I cannot take the credit people give me,” said the lad, with a little heat. “He happened to get into my boat when he was nearly exhausted--that is the whole business. There has been much more talk about it than was necessary. I cannot pretend even to be a friend of Mr. Frankland,” said Colin, with the unnecessary explanatoriness of youth, “and I certainly did not save his life.”