"Of course he did. I got the whole story out of him after dinner, and, upon my honour, I think it is the most romantic one I have ever heard. About a week ago, the lady arrived here without attendants. Some say she came in the mail-coach--others in a dark travelling chariot and pair. However, what matters it? the jewel can derive no lustre or value from the casket!" "Yes--but one always likes to have some kind of idea of the setting. Get on." "She seemed in great distress, and inquired whether there were any letters at the post-office addressed to the Honourable Dorothea Percy. No such epistle was to be found. She then interrogated the landlord, whether an elderly lady, whose appearance she minutely described, had been seen in the neighbourhood of Jedburgh; but except old Mrs Slammingham of Summertrees, who has been bed-ridden for years, there was nobody in the county who at all answered to the description. On hearing this, the lady seemed profoundly agitated--shut herself up in a private parlour, and refused all sustenance." "Had she not a reticule with sandwiches, Tom?" "Do not tempt me to commit justifiable homicide--you see I am in the act of shaving.--At last the landlady, who is a most respectable person, and who felt deeply interested at the desolate situation of the poor young lady, ventured to solicit an interview. She was admitted. There are moments when the sympathy of even the humblest friend is precious. Miss Percy felt grateful for the interest so displayed, and confided the tale of her griefs to the matronly bosom of the hostess." "And she told you? "No,--but she told Bailie Beerie. That active magistrate thought it his duty to interfere. He waited upon Miss Percy, and from her lips he gathered the full particulars of her history. Percy is not her real name, but she is the daughter of an English peer of very ancient family. Her father having married a second time, Dorothea was exposed to the persecutions of a low-minded vulgar woman, whose whole ideas were of that mean and mercenary description which characterise the Caucasian race. Naomi Shekles was the offspring of a Jew, and she hated, whilst she envied, the superior charms of the noble Norman maiden. But she had gained an enormous supremacy over the wavering intellect of the elderly Viscount; and Dorothea was commanded to receive, with submission, the addressses of a loathsome apostate, who had made a prodigious fortune in the railways." "One of the tribe of Issachar?" "Exactly. A miscreant whose natural function was the vending of cast habiliments. Conceive, Fred, what the fair young creature must have felt at the bare idea of such shocking spousals! She besought, prayed, implored,--but all in vain. Mammon had taken too deep a root in the paternal heart,--the old coronet had been furbished up by means of Israelitish gold, and the father could not see any degradation in forcing upon his child an alliance similar to his own." "You interest me excessively."