"Oho! So you are the unknown knight whom M. de Lorme and the ladies have been raving about; who goes around in sable sadness, rescuing charming young ladies from perilous situations, and disappearing as mysteriously as you come. Faith, my friend, there is a nice romance concocted over you. But, George, my boy, I could say a great deal more than my eloquent sister has done on this subject, only I know it would be distasteful to you. However, we shall have it out together on the quiet some day. But what a shame!" Ned rattled on as they made their way to the hotel. "Here is all my nice little plot spoiled. Mary, I gave him such a description of you. Let me see, George, what was she like? Red-haired, freckled, middle-aged, and stout; short of breath and tall of body; weighing one hundred and seventy pounds after dinner, and a trifle less before." George looked disgusted, and Mary was laughing. "You took snuff, Mary, and wore your carroty curls in little whisks of brown paper half through the day. You had a vixenish temper, a liking for toddy, and would insist on speaking French to the servants with a beautiful Galway accent, and swore at them like a trooper for not understanding you. It was only out of pure regard for your handsome brother and for the sake of 'auld lang syne' that my friend George would tolerate your presence at all. And here you are the whole time old and valued friends, under mutual obligations to each other--you for saving my middle-aged relative from being run away with and dashed to pieces by a vicious brute, and my middle-aged relative for being gracious enough to allow you to do anything of the kind. I declare it _is_ shameful, and almost makes one take the rash oath of never telling a good-natured lie again." This harangue of Ned's set them both at their ease as though they had known each other all their lives. "And may I ask, Miss Fitzgerald, if this conscientious brother of yours gave an equally accurate description of his old school-fellow?" said George, laughing. "Mary, don't tell.... He'll murder me...." "I was instructed all the way along to be particularly kind and attentive to a dapper...." "No, not dapper ..." interjected Ned. "Yes, dapper, Mr. Howard; I remember the word distinctly. A dapper little old gentleman with a bald head and only one eye, who was as deaf as a post, but would not allow any one to consider him so. I was led to understand that he made excellent company at table, only that he simply followed out his own train of thought, and his remarks consequently were generally rather _mal-à-propos_; and in fact quite a lot of other things that I cannot remember, save that I was to take him his drops every morning at half-past eleven precisely, and always put six lumps of sugar in his coffee, and none in his tea." There was a merry dinner-party that evening at the hotel, and a long ramble by the beach afterwards under the moon.