Could it be Mr. Carmel come back again? Good Heavens! no; it was the stranger in Mr. Carmel's place, as we had grown to call it. The same window, his hands, it seemed, resting on the very same spot on the window-stone, and his knee, just as Mr. Carmel used to place his, on the stone bench. I had no idea before how stern the stranger's face was; the contrast between the features I had for a moment expected, and those of our guest, revealed the character of his with a force assisted by the misty red beam that glanced on it, with a fierce melancholy, through the trees. His appearance was as unexpected as if he had been a ghost. It came in the midst of a discussion as to what should be done if, by ill chance, he should die in the steward's house. I can't say how Laura Grey felt; I only know that I stared at his smiling face for some seconds, scarcely knowing whether the apparition was a reality or not. "I hope you will forgive me; I hope I am not very impertinent; but I have just got up from an astounding headache all right again; and in consequence, in such spirits, that I never thought how audacious I was in venturing this little visit until it was too late." Miss Grey and I were both too much confounded to say a word. But he rattled on: "I have had a visitor since you were so good as to give me shelter in my shipwrecked state--one quite unexpected. I don't mean my doctor, of course. I had a call to-day much more curious, and wholly unlooked for; an old acquaintance, a fellow named Carmel. I knew him at Oxford, and I certainly never expected to see him again." "Oh! You know Mr. Carmel?" I said, my curiosity overcoming a kind of reluctance to talk. "Know him? I rather think I do," he laughed. "Do you know him?" "Yes," I answered; "that is, not very well; there is, of course, a little formality in our acquaintance--more, I mean, than if he were not a clergyman." "But do you really know him? I fancied he was boasting when he said so." The gentleman appeared extremely amused. "Yes; we know him pretty well. But why should it be so unlikely a thing our knowing him?"