"Suppose your father and mother have placed you in my sole charge, with a direction to remove you from Malory, and take you under my immediate care and supervision, to-day; you will hold yourself in readiness to depart immediately, attended by a lady appointed to look after you, with the approbation of your parents--eh?" "No, sir, I'll not go. I'll remain with Miss Grey. I'll not leave Malory," I replied, stopping short, and turning towards him. I felt myself growing very pale, but I spoke with resolution. "You'll not? what, my good young lady, not if I show you your father's letter?" "Certainly not. Nothing but violence shall remove me from Malory, until I see papa himself. He certainly would not do anything so cruel!" I exclaimed, while my heart sank within me. He studied my face for a moment with his dark and fiery eyes. "You are a spirited young lady; a will of your own!" he said. "Then you won't obey your parents?" "I'll do as I have said," I answered, inwardly quaking. He addressed Miss Grey now. "You'll make her do as she's ordered?" said this man, whose looks seemed to me more sinister every moment. "I really can't. Besides, in a matter of so much importance, I think she is right not to act without seeing her father, or, at least, hearing directly from him." "Well, I must take my leave," said he. "And I may as well tell you it is a mere mystification; I have no authority, and no wish to disturb your stay at Malory; and we are not particularly likely ever to meet again; and you'll forgive an old fellow his joke, young ladies?" With these brusque and eccentric sentences, he raised his hat, and with the activity of a younger man, ran up the bank at the side of the road; and, on the summit, looked about him for a moment, as if he had forgotten us altogether; and then, at his leisure, he descended at the other side and was quite lost to view. Laura Grey and I were both staring in the direction in which he had just disappeared. Each, after a time, looked in her companion's face. "I almost think he's mad!" said Miss Grey. "What could have possessed Mr. Carmel to introduce such a person to us?" I exclaimed. "Did you hear his name?" I asked, after we had again looked in the direction in which he had gone, without discovering any sign of his return. "Droqville, I think," she answered. "Oh! Laura, I am so frightened! Do you think papa can really intend any such thing? He's too kind. I am sure it is a falsehood." "It is a joke, he says himself," she answered. "I can't help thinking a very odd joke, and very pointless; and one that did not seem to amuse even himself." "Then you do not think it is true?" I urged, my panic returning. "Well, I can't think it is true, because, if it were, why should he say it was a joke? We shall soon know. Perhaps Mr. Carmel will enlighten us." "I thought he seemed in awe of that man," I said. "So did I," answered Miss Grey. "Perhaps he is his superior."