"I have brought you," he went on, "a filagree bracelet for your arms, tho'," in a lower voice, "they need no adornment. And for thy head a philomot-coloured hood, different in shape from the one uncle has brought. And its russet hue should well become thy golden hair, that looks like the wheat when 'tis a-ripening." But here I bade him pay me no more compliments lest I should become vain, and then we all sat down to our meal together. CHAPTER XIII THE BOND SLAVE "And now," said my father, after he and Gregory had eaten well of what was on the table, such as most excellent fish from the river, one of our baked hams, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pones and wheaten bread, as well as puddings of papaw, or custard apples. "And now we have a strange recital to make to you young ladies, the like of which is not often heard, or if heard--for the convict villains and bought servants are capable of any lies--not much believed in." "What is it?" Mary Mills and I both asked in the same breath. "Tho'," she went on, "perhaps I can guess. Is't some young princess who has come out as a 'convict villain?'" and here she laughed. "Nay, 'twould not be so wonderful. From Bristol in my time there were many went forth who, when they reached here, or the Islands, told marvellous strange stories of their real position--sometimes imposing so much upon the planters that there would come letters home asking if such and such a woman could indeed be the Lady This, or if such and such a man could be the Lord That? Yet they never could procure proofs that such was the case." My father and Gregory exchanged glances at her words, and then the former said: "And such a letter I think I must send home. For I have bought to-day a young fellow--as much out of pity as for any use he is like to be, such a poor, starved radish of a young man is he--who protests and swears that 'tis all a mistake his being here, and that some dreadful villainy has been practised on him. For he says that, though not a lord himself, he is the son and heir of one, ay! and of a marquis, too, in the future." I cried out at this, for my girl's curiosity was aroused, and Miss Mills exclaimed, "'Tis ever the old story. They have talents, these servants, tho' they apply them but ill. They should turn romancers when I warrant that they would outdo such stories as 'Polyxander,' or 'L'Illustre Bassa,' or 'Le Grand Cyrus,' or even the wanderings of Mendes Pinto." "Yet," said Gregory, "there seems a strain of truth in his words. He speaks like a gentleman,"--Gregory had been educated at Harvard, so he was a fitting judge, independently of being a gentleman himself--"and, undoubtedly, no convict from home or rapscallion fleeing from justice would talk as assuredly as he does of his father's anger on those who kidnapped him, or of the certainty of his being sent for by the first ship from Ireland--whence he has come--if he had not some grounds to go upon."