is it not? We know so few
people here."

"Yes," I replied. "Does John Cotton know who he is?"

"No; he refuses to tell, and all John Cotton can find out is that he
leaves town by the river road. He appears to be a stranger to all the
other darkies, and nobody seems to know him."

By the river road! Could it possibly be, then, that it was the Tory
maid who sent those many miles to see if I were in the land of the
living or the dead? Ah, it was too pleasant a thing to dream of; too
pleasant to have it shattered by the rough hand of fact. And so I said
dreamily, "It is only one of John Cotton's stories, I suppose."

Yet I would not have believed it otherwise for all of John Cotton's
weight in gold. Thus it was I was thinking one day of the Tory maid,
when the door opened, and a tall, dignified gentleman came in--the man
who had stood by my side that day when with drawn sword I held the
door against Rodolph and his followers--Mr. Lambert Wilmer of the
White House in Kent.

He came forward and greeted me with many kind phrases. While he sat
talking to me of the duel and its cause, I thought of that great burst
of laughter when he told Rodolph to put up his sword, as by this time
he should have had enough of Gordon of the Braes, and I asked the
reason for it all.

"It is a long story, lad," said he, "but I will tell it to you."

Then he told me how, many years before, Mistress Margaret Nicholson
had been the loveliest girl in Kent, and the belle of the whole shore,
and how there was not a bachelor within three counties who did not
seek her as his bride, or who would not have sold his soul for a
glance of her eyes or the soft pressure of her hand; and how when
James Rodolph of Charlestown Hundred came riding down from Cecil and
boasted of his wealth, his horses, and his slaves, swearing that he
would win her or no one would, the suitors stood aside to see how he
would fare with this the proudest of Kent beauties. To their dismay,
he seemed to prosper well, until one day there disembarked from a
vessel that came sailing up the broad Chester a young gentleman of
distinguished appearance, who asked his way to Radcliffe, the home of
the Nicholsons.

"Now, the Nicholsons, as you know," said Mr. Wilmer, "are Scotch, and
this young gentleman was Scotch, for his accent betrayed him, and we,
thinking he might be a cousin and have brought news from over the
water, welcomed him, and showed him the way to Radcliffe. He, though