I was going home--when there suddenly appeared two figures before me, advancing on my way. I say two figures, because in our country everything stands out so clear upon the great universal background of sky, that I could not so truly say it was a man and a boy, as two dark outlines, clearly marked and separated from the low, broad level of the country, and the arch of heaven, which now approached upon me. I cannot help an unconscious estimate of character from the tricks of gesture and carriage, which, perhaps, could not have been so visible anywhere else, as here, upon this flat, unbroken road. One of these figures was a stooping and pliant one, with a sort of sinuous twisting motion, noiseless and sidelong, as if his habit was to twist and glide through ways too narrow to admit the passage of a man; the other form was that of a boy--a slight figure, which, to my perfect health and girlish courage, looked timid and hesitating; the brightness of the sky behind cast the faces of the strangers into shadow--but my eye was caught by the unfamiliar outlines; they _were_ strangers, that was sure. We gradually approached nearer, for I was walking quickly, though their pace was slow; but before we met my thoughts had wandered off from them, and I was greatly astonished by the sudden address which brought me to an abrupt pause before them. "Young lady," the man said, with an awkward bow, "what is your name?" I was a country girl, and utterly beyond the reach of fear from impertinence. I was my father's daughter, moreover, and loftily persuaded that nothing disrespectful could approach _me_. I answered immediately with a little scorn of the question--for to be unknown in my own country was a new sensation--"I am Hester Southcote, of Cottiswoode," and having said so, was about to pass on. "Ah, indeed! it is just as I thought, then," said the stranger, wheeling his young companion round, so as to place him side by side with me. "We are going back to Cottiswoode--we will have the pleasure of your company; I am quite happy we have met." But my girlish disdain did not annihilate the bold intruder; it only brought a disagreeable smile to his mouth which made him look still more like some dangerous unknown animal to me. I was not very well versed in society, nor much acquainted with the world, but I knew by intuition that this person, though quite as well dressed as any one I had ever seen, was not a gentleman; he was one of those nondescripts whom you could not respect either for wealth or poverty--one of those few people you could be disrespectful to, without blushing for yourself. "Do you want any thing at Cottiswoode?" I asked accordingly, not at all endeavoring to conceal that I thought my new companion a very unsuitable visitor at my father's house.