ole reason the two girls were kept out of the way, and
sent off so early to bed; though by the by I'm almost ashamed to say"--

"Don't talk of your shame, Frank," interrupted Vernon, "a very different
kind of thing, though too often confounded with modesty. It's the
latter--It's your modesty--I wish to hear about."

"Why, the plain state of the case," rejoined Frank, "was, that our
good-natured friend the squire, from an imperfect knowledge of the
natural boldness of my disposition, (call it impudence, if you will,)
supposed me incapable of facing the battery of laughter my extraordinary
appearance would have exposed me to, had I come within view of his fair
daughters."

"Your appearance is queer enough at all times I must confess," observed
Vernon, "and still more so in your travelling costume; but still hardly
enough so, I should have thought, to have produced quite so powerful an
effect as you have just mentioned."

"You wouldn't say so, or have thought so, either, had you seen the
strange figure of fun I made. Just now for a moment fancy my limited
proportions enveloped in the squire's ample toggery--(who more than
makes up in breadth all he wants in height,)--only fancy me so attired
and where could you look for a more complete personification of a living
scarecrow?"

"I can fancy it all," said Vernon Wycherley, laughing exceedingly at the
idea of his companion so arrayed; "but do tell me," he continued, "what
could have induced you to put on so ridiculous a masquerade."

"What else could I do?" rejoined Frank, "unless I turned in supperless
to bed, or had it brought up to me there, neither of which suited my
inclination--for, you see, what the rain we encountered had left undone
in the drenching way, the brook I blundered over head and ears into had
completely effected; and though my subsequent souse just afterwards into
the fishpond could make me no wetter, that deficiency was amply made up
for in mud; and as I had thrown off my knapsack, I had no precise notion
where, in order that I might run all the lighter without it, which has
only just now been picked up and returned to me, and so not a dry rag of
my own to help myself to, I was right glad to rig myself out in the
squire's clothes, which, fitting me like what our friend the admiral
would say, 'purser's shirt upon a handspike,' made me look for all the
world like an unstuffed effigy of a Guy Fawkes--a figure so
superlatively ridiculous, that two light-