"Of which you know nothing," answered the earl, "being utterly and entirely ignorant of the whole facts, and assuming a number of positions, every one of which is false. Your logic and your prudence have both failed you, my good sir; and as you still speak in a tone I dislike, I think it will be much better to drop a discussion which seems only likely to end in a diminution of both my respect and my friendship." "You are very hard upon me, my lord," replied Mr. Rhind. "I am not conscious of having deserved such treatment, and all I can say is, if I have done so, I am ready to make any atonement in my power, as soon as you show me that such is the case." "That I can show you instantly," answered Lord Gowrie; "for I am sorry to say that you have undoubtedly erred in every one of your conclusions, and should have known me better than to suppose that I would act in a manner derogatory to my character, to my station, and to the faith in which I have been brought up." "The passions of young men," said Mr. Rhind, gravely, "will often lead them to act contrary even to their own judgment." "I might reply to that observation somewhat severely," said the earl, conquering a strong inclination to retaliate; "but I will not do so, and will merely show you, how you have suffered prejudice to warp your own judgment. You have said the lady is an Italian. On the contrary, she is my own countrywoman, the daughter of a house as noble as my own. You have said that she is a papist, a worshipper of the beast, a follower of the antichrist of Rome. These are harsh words, sir; and they are all false. She is a protestant. Her father was a protestant, her mother, her grandfather. As to the latter, by whom she was educated, he was driven from his native country on account of his testimony against the superstitious vanities of that very church of Rome--do not interrupt me.--You have said that she is a runaway from her family and friends. There you are as much in error as in all the rest. She has fled to me, on the death of her only surviving relation in this country, to escape persecution; and one of the principal charges upon which that persecution is founded, is that she could never be brought to attend upon the superstitious observance of confession, or ask absolution at the hands of a mortal like herself. And now, my good sir, having heard the facts, let me tell you my intentions. I have undertaken to escort this young lady back to her native country of Scotland; to claim for her, and if possible to restore to her the estates of which she has been unjustly deprived; and I have promised to make her my wife at the end of about twelve months from this time. All this I will perform to the letter. Nay more, I should conceive it a duty, in the situation in which she is placed, to urge her at once to give me her hand, had I not bound myself solemnly to refrain till the period I have mentioned is past. This promise I will also keep, though in keeping it I render the rest