"O!" cried Hetty, running to the window and pointing out, "the real Robinson Crusoe is here." "Where? I hope he has Man Friday, parrot, and all; walking to the window, where they stood looking out, the girl, with her round arm, pointing into the gathering dusk. In the window-place, they were almost face to face. Instead of instantly following the direction of Hetty's arm, he followed the direction of his thoughts, and while her eyes were gazing out of the window, his were fixed upon her face. "There," she said, upon finding his eyes were not in the direction of her hand. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but I can see no one." He was now looking out of the window. "But you can see his island." "Again I beg your pardon, but I can see no island." "What you see there is an island. That is not the tow-path right opposite: that is Boland's Ait." "Boland's Ait! Yes, I have heard of Boland's Ait. I have nothing to do with it, I believe?" he turned to Layard. "I think not." "O, no!" said the girl laughing; "the whole island is the property of Mr. Francis Bramwell, a most mysterious man, who is either an astrologer, or an author, or a pirate, or something wonderful and romantic." "Why," cried her brother in amused surprise, "where on earth did you get this information?" "From Mrs. Grainger, whom you sent to help me to-day. Mrs. Grainger knows the history of the whole neighbourhood from the time of Adam." "The place cannot have existed so long," said Crawford, with another of his short laughs; "for it shows no sign of having been washed even as far back as the Flood. Is your Crusoe old or young?" "Young, I am told, and handsome. I assure you the story is quite romantic." "And is there much more of the story of this Man Friday, or whatever he is?" asked Crawford carelessly, as he moved away from the window towards the door. "Well," said she, "that is a good deal to begin with; and then it is said he has been ruined by some one or other, or something or other, either betting on horses or buying shares in railways to the moon, and that he did these foolish things because his wife ran away from him; and now he lives all alone on his island, and leaves it very seldom, and never has any visitors, or hardly any, and is supposed to be writing a book proving that woman is a mistake and ought to be abolished." "The brute!" interpolated Crawford, bowing to Hetty, as though in protest against any one who could say an unkind thing of the sex to which she belonged. "Isn't it dreadful?" cried the girl in a tone of comic distress. She was still standing by the window, one cheek and side of her golden-brown hair illumined by the fading light, and her blue eyes dancing with mischievous excitement. "And they say that, much as he hates women, he hates men more." "Ah! that is a redeeming feature," said Crawford. "A misanthropist is intelligible, but a misogynist is a thing beyond reason, and hateful."