'Of course,' said the squire; 'everybody said you were.'

'I think I should have justified the report, if it had not been for an excellent Protestant clergyman, who felt deeply for me, having just buried his wife in the same disease; he became a father to me, though I had no other claim upon his sympathy than needing it.'

'Where is he now?' asked the squire eagerly.

Eustace was silent.

'Ha!' said the squire; 'go on.'

'Like me, he was, as far as human ties go, alone in the world, and determined to spend the remainder of his life as a missionary in the East. I resolved to accompany him; for when we paid our last visit to the little Protestant burial-place, which contained the two who had been all to us on earth, it seemed as if nature and heaven had marked us out for companions. Eight years we wandered together through the East, he by his life and preaching teaching Christianity, I learning it. I cannot pretend to enter now into the labours and pleasures of those eight years. His health broke down. He died at Beirut, on our return westward, and again I was alone. Now my heart yearned for England. Was I to wander a stranger through life with mere chance companions? I embarked on board a vessel bound for Alexandria, intending to shape my course finally to my own country; but a doctor from Frankfort, our fellow-traveller through part of Syria, who had shown great kindness to my friend in his illness, and had skilfully soothed his sufferings, being my fellow-passenger now, won so upon my regard, which was before his, from gratitude, that I was induced to change my purpose, and try the Western world, where he designed to settle. Seven long years I spent in the two Americas, till, weary of the wide, wide world, I once more determined on seeking a home in the hearts of some who, strange to me, yet seemed to beckon me from the distance. It was you, uncle.'

'Ay, my lad; if I had known your whereabouts, I should have done more than beckon, I can tell you.'

'It happened, singularly enough, that the Frankfort doctor and I became again passengers in the same vessel. He had married an American lady, and was taking her home to Fatherland, preferring the small gains he expected to get in Dusseldorf, where he had a connection, to any amount of money away from it.'

'In the right of it!' said the squire. 'I would rather live on bread and cheese in England than have all the treasures of the Great Mogul in any other country.'

'You never did live on bread and cheese, squire,' said the doctor, with a smirk.