Castle Durrow.

"P. S. Avoid all English acquaintances on your road. Give
yourself out to be a foreigner, and speak as little as
possible."

CHAPTER IX. MAITLAND'S FRIEND

"I don't think I 'll walk down to the Burnside with you to-day," said
Beck Graham to Maitland, on the morning after their excursion.

"And why not?"

"People have begun to talk of our going off together alone,--long
solitary walks. They say it means something--or nothing."

"So, I opine, does every step and incident of our lives."

"Well. You understand what I intended to say."

"Not very clearly, perhaps; but I shall wait a little further
explanation. What is it that the respectable public imputes to us?"

"That you are a very dangerous companion for a young lady in a country
walk."

"But am I? Don't you think you are in a position to refute such a
calumny?"

"I spoke of you as I found you."

"And how might that be?"

"Very amusing at some moments; very absent at others; very desirous to
be thought lenient and charitable in your judgments of people, while
evidently thinking the worst of every one; and with a rare frankness
about yourself that, to any one not very much interested to learn the
truth, was really as valuable as the true article."

"But you never charged me with any ungenerous use of my advantage; to
make professions, for instance, because I found you alone."

"A little--a very little of that--there was; just as children stamp on
thin ice and run away when they hear it crack beneath them."

"Did I go so far as that?"

"Yes; and Sally says, if she was in my place, she 'd send papa to you
this morning."

"And I should be charmed to see him. There are no people whom I prefer
to naval men. They have the fresh, vigorous, healthy tone of their own
sea life in all they say."

"Yes; you'd have found him vigorous enough, I promise you."

"And why did you consult your sister at all?"

"I did not consult her; she got all out of me by cross-questioning. She
began by saying, 'That man is a mystery to me; he has not come down here
to look after the widow nor Isabella; he's not thinking of politics nor
the borough; there 's no one here that he wants or cares for. What can
he be at?'"

"Could n't you have told her that he was one of those men who have lived
so much in the world it is a luxury to them to live a little out of it?
Just as it is a relief to sit in a darkened room after your eyes have
been dazz