"I really can't say."

"I can, sir. You'd have run away. _She'll_ run away. Don't you
worry your head about her--she'll save you the trouble. I tell
you again, she'll run away."

With those ominous words the housekeeper took up her basket,
sighed heavily, and left me.

I sat down under a tree quite helpless. Here was the whole
responsibility shifted upon my miserable shoulders. Not a lady in
the neighborhood to whom I could apply for assistance, and the
nearest shop eight miles distant from us. The toughest case I
ever had to conduct, when I was at the Bar, was plain sailing
compared with the difficulty of receiving our fair guest.

It was absolutely necessary, however, to decide at once where she
was to sleep. All the rooms in the tower were of stone--dark,
gloomy, and cold even in the summer-time. Impossible to put her
in any one of them. The only other alternative was to lodge her
in the little modern lean-to, which I have already described as
being tacked on to the side of the old building. It contained
three cottage-rooms, and they might be made barely habitable for
a young lady. But then those rooms were occupied by Morgan. His
books were in one, his bed was in another, his pipes and general
lumber were in the third. Could I expect him, after the sour
similitudes he had used in reference to our expected visitor, to
turn out of his habitation and disarrange all his habits for her
convenience? The bare idea of proposing the thing to him seemed
ridiculous; and yet inexorable necessity left me no choice but to