it without difficulty,
though very unlike any cottage that came within my recollection.
Indeed, it is a large villa, most richly furnished, and crowded with
such numbers of black servants, that it must go hard with them to
find enough to do. That, however, is none of my business, and Mr.
Sanderson does not seem the man to spend his money wastefully; so I
suppose wages to be very low here.

"Mr. Sanderson received me hospitably, and entertained me to a most
agreeable meal, though the dishes were somewhat hotly seasoned, and
the number of servants again gave me some uneasiness. But when,
after dinner, we sat and smoked out on the balcony and watched the
still gardens, the glimmering houses and, above all, the noble bay
sleeping beneath the gentle shadow of the night, I confess to a
feeling that, after all, man is at home wherever Nature smiles so
kindly. The hush of the hour was upon me, and made me disinclined to
speak lest its spell should be broken--disinclined to do anything but
watch the smoke-wreaths as they floated out upon the tranquil air."

"Mr. Sanderson broke the silence.

"'You have not been long in coming.'

"'Did you not expect me so soon?'

"'Why, you see, I had not read your father's Will.'

"I explained to him as briefly as I could the reasons which drove me
to leave Lantrig. He listened in silence, and then said, after a
pause--

"'You have not, then, undertaken this lightly?'

"'As Heaven is my witness, no, whether there be anything in this
business or not.'

"'I think,' said he, slowly, 'there is something in it. My father
had his crotchets, it is true; but he was no fool. He never opened
his lips to me on the matter, but left me to hear the first of it in
his last Will and Testament. Oddly enough, our fathers seem both to
have found religion in their old age. Mine took his comfort in the
Presbyterian shape. But it is all the same. There was some reason
for your father to repent, if rumours were true; but why mine, a
respectable servant of the East India Company, should want
consolation, is not so clear. Maybe 'twas only another form of
egotism. Religion, even, is spelt with an I, ye'll observe.

"'An odd couple,' he continued, musing, 'to be mixed up together!
But we'll let them rest in peace. I'd better let you have what was
entrusted to me, and then, mayhap, ye'll be better able to form an
opinion.'

"With this he rose and stepped back into the lighted room, whilst I
fo