“Never mind me,” answered the stranger, busying himself in stirring the fire; “I am tolerably well accustomed to greater hardships than sleeping on a chair in an honest man’s house; and though you are poor, I will take it for granted you are honest.”
The man grinned: and turning to Alice, bade her spread what their larder would afford. Some crusts of bread, some cold potatoes, and some tolerably strong beer, composed all the fare set before the traveller.
Despite his previous boasts, the young man made a wry face at these Socratic preparations, while he drew his chair to the board. But his look grew more gay as he caught Alice’s eye; and as she lingered by the table, and faltered out some hesitating words of apology, he seized her hand, and pressing it tenderly—“Prettiest of lasses,” said he—and while he spoke he gazed on her with undisguised admiration—“a man who has travelled on foot all day, through the ugliest country within the three seas, is sufficiently refreshed at night by the sight of so fair a face.”
Alice hastily withdrew her hand, and went and seated herself in a corner of the room, when she continued to look at the stranger with her usual vacant gaze, but with a half-smile upon her rosy lips.
Alice’s father looked hard first at one, then at the other.
“Eat, sir,” said he, with a sort of chuckle, “and no fine words; poor Alice is honest, as you said just now.”
“To be sure,” answered the traveller, employing with great zeal a set of strong, even, and dazzling teeth at the tough crusts; “to be sure she is. I did not mean to offend you; but the fact is, that I am half a foreigner; and abroad, you know, one may say a civil thing to a pretty girl without hurting her feelings, or her father’s either.”
“Half a foreigner! why, you talk English as well as I do,” said the host, whose intonation and words were, on the whole, a little above his station.
The stranger smiled. “Thank you for the compliment,” said he. “What I meant was, that I have been a great deal abroad; in fact, I have just returned from Germany. But I am English born.”
“And going home?”