'No.'

'Well the Captain is his own father; and the old woman is his
grandmother. The robber chief's father was known as "Nick, the
Highwayman," a terrible person whose name made everybody's heart beat
fast fifty years ago.'

'But how came you here, Nancy? You look different from the people
about you; your language is elegant and you appear as if you had been
born well.'

Such words coming from _him_ embarrassed the girl. But when the
blood began to return to her cheek, she heaved a sigh so piteous and
profound as to move every spring of pity in our hero's heart.

'Ah, yes; I knew purer, and more happy days,' she replied; 'but to
commence my story is like opening again wounds that once have
tortured. My father came to this country when I was an infant under
the nurse's care, my mother having died a few hours after I was born.
My father had served for many years as an officer in the army; and he
fought under Lord Wellington, as captain, at Waterloo. He had several
connections in this Province, and shortly after his arrival here,
through the influence of the governor, obtained the position of
sheriff for York and the allied counties. He built a house in the
heart of the wilderness, and cleared a farm, stocking it with horses,
cows, oxen and sheep.

'I found it very lonely during the years of my early girlhood; and I
used to go, despite my father's wishes, much away from home, spending
a day with one friend, and a week with another. Nor was I choice at