At this moment, and luckily for me (for I was “regularly bothered,”) the blue-coated servitor announced supper. I presented my arm to Miss Hartley, and through a side door we entered the eating room. By a singular self-command, the host’s features had regained their previous expression of urbanity; his manner was courteous, his welcome encouraging, and he seemed the very opposite of Andy Beg’s description, when he called him repulsive and inhospitable. Nothing could surpass the neatness of the apartment. In all its arrangements simplicity had been regarded; yet still there was an evidence of luxury and wealth in the quantity and massive fashion of the plate, which seemed better suited to the mansion of a noble than the retreat of a recluse. Never did intruder time his visit more opportunely, if the excellence of a supper were the proof. The meal passed over agreeably, though in point of performance the actors differed. Miss Hartley ate little, her father turned out an indifferent trencher-man; but, faith, I made up for this double deficiency, as the skeleton that left the table of what came there, a goodly wild-duck, proved. No wonder; since I dined at the lonely inn, if varied exercise could produce a healthy appetite, mine should have been in top condition. But hunger has its limit,--mine was at last appeased; supper removed, wine and fruit were placed upon the table, and old blue-coat disappeared, leaving me perfectly satisfied with my quarters, and much more so with my company. The host having filled his glass, pushed the decanters across the table. “Come, sir, drink; you will own that Port wine sound, and this Madeira has circumnavigated the world; but I recommend the Burgundy. Probably, as it seems the custom of the country, you are not a wine-drinker after supper, should you therefore prefer them, you will find cognac and hollands on the buffet.” Egad, the more I saw of it, the more I admired the establishment. Burgundy and Madeira that had circumnavigated the world--these formed very gentlemanly tipple to sport under a racketty old roof, to a self-invited visitor, who had dropped in, like a priest collecting corn, with a “God save all here.” Nor did I neglect the invitation. The bottle passed freely, previous restraint wore away, and some allusion of Mr. Hartley’s to a military life, led me by degrees into a private history of my own, until “I ran it through, even from my boyish days To the very moment when he bade me tell it.” I afterwards recollected that some of Mr. Hartley’s questions could only have been asked by a person to whom the earlier history of my parents was intimately known, but I did not notice it at the moment. Charmed at the urbanity of my host, and flattered that my young Desdemona expressed an interest in my fortunes, and “Gave me for my pains a world of smiles,”