"What are the names of the places near to it?"
"We have no places of note near to us, sir: only a few small villages that count for nothing."
"Well, what are their names?"
"There's Hamley, sir; and Eastwick; and Greylands; and----"
"Are any of these places on the sea?" interrupted the stranger, as he helped himself to a mutton chop.
"Greylands is, sir. It's a poor little place in itself, nothing hardly but fishermen's huts in it; but the sea is beautiful there.--Bangalore sauce, sir?"
"Well, I don't know," said the young man, looking first at the bottle of sauce, being handed to him, and then up at the waiter, a laughing doubt in his blue eyes. "Is it good?"
"It's very good indeed, sir, as sauce; and rare too; you'd not find it in any other inn at Stilborough. Not but what some tastes prefer mutton chops plain."
"I think I do," said the stranger, declining the sauce. "Thank you; it may be better to let well alone."
His breakfast over, Mr. George North sat back in his chair, and glanced through the sunbeams at the dusty road and the white pavement. The waiter placed on the table the last number of the Stilborough Herald; and nearly at the same moment there dashed up to the inn door a phaeton and pair. The gentleman who was driving handed the reins to the groom sitting beside him, alighted, and entered the hotel.