My grandmother took the flute, started, put her spectacles closer to her eyes, examined the instrument, turned pale--for her cheeks still retained a little of the colour of their youth--and then cast a glance hurriedly and anxiously at me. I could see that she was pondering on something profoundly in her most secret mind, for a minute or two. Luckily the others were too much occupied with the box of the pedlar to heed her movements. She walked slowly out of the door, almost brushing me as she passed, and went into the hall. Here she turned, and, catching my eye, she signed for me to join her. Obeying this signal, I followed, until I was led into a little room, in one of the wings, that I well remembered as a sort of private parlour attached to my grandmother's own bed-room. To call it a _boudoir_ would be to caricature things, its furniture being just that of the sort of room I have mentioned, or of a plain, neat, comfortable, country parlour. Here my grandmother took her seat on a sofa, for she trembled so she could not stand, and then she turned to gaze at me wistfully, and with an anxiety it would be difficult for me to describe. "Do not keep me in suspense!" she said, almost awfully in tone and manner, "am I right in my conjecture?" "Dearest grandmother, you are!" I answered, in my natural voice. No more was needed: we hung on each other's necks, as had been my wont in boyhood. "But who is that pedlar, Hugh?" demanded my grandmother, after a time. "Can it possibly be Roger, my son?" "It is no other; we have come to visit you, incog." "And why this disguise?--Is it connected with the troubles?" "Certainly; we have wished to take a near view with our own eyes, and supposed it might be unwise to come openly, in our proper characters." "In this you have done well; yet I hardly know how to welcome you, in your present characters. On no account must your real names be revealed. The demons of tar and feathers, the sons of liberty and equality, who illustrate their principles as they do their courage, by attacking the few with the many, would be stirring, fancying themselves heroes and martyrs in the cause of justice, did they learn you were here. Ten armed and resolute men might drive a hundred of them, I do believe; for they have all the cowardice of thieves, but they are heroes with the unarmed and feeble. Are you safe, yourselves, appearing thus disguised, under the new law?" "We are not armed, not having so much as a pistol; and that will protect us."