The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

236 WAVERLEY' NOVELS.
"I know not whether it has or no," said the lad; "but I will not tell you
who I am."
"You will keep your secret to yourself then, peevish boy," said Nigel,
turning from him, and resuming his walk through the room; then stopping
suddenly, he said-" And yet you shall not escape from me without knowing
that I penetrate your mystery."
" My mystery 1" said the youth, at once alarmed and irritated,-" what
mean you, my lord?"
"Only that I can read your dream without the assistance of a Chaldean
interpreter, and my exposition is-that my fair companion does not wear
the dress of her sex."
"And if I do not, my lord," said his companion, hastily starting up, and
folding her cloak tight around her, " my dress, such as it is, covers one who
will not disgrace it."
" Many would call that speech a fair challenge," said Lord Glenvarloch,
looking on her fixedly; "women do not masquerade in men's clothes, to
make use of men's weapons."
"I have no such purpose," said the seeming boy; "I have other means
of protection, and powerful-but I would first know what is your purpose."
"An honourable and a most respectful one," said Lord Glenvarloch;
"whatever you are-whatever motive may have brought you into this ambiguous situation, I am sensible —every look, word, and action of yours,
makes me sensible-that you are no proper subject of importunity, far less
of ill usage. What circumstances can have forced you into so doubtful a
situation, I know not; but I feel assured there is, and can be, nothing in
them of a premeditated wrong, which should expose you to cold-blooded
insult. From me you have nothing to dread."
"I expected nothing less from your nobleness, my lord," answered the
female. " My adventure, though I feel it was both desperate and foolish, is
riot so very foolish, nor my safety here so utterly unprotected, as at first
sight-and in this strange dress, it may appear to be. I have suffered
enough, and more than enough, by the degradation of having been seen in
this unfeminine attire, and the comments you must necessarily have made
on my conduct-but I thank God that I am so far protected, that I could
not have been subjected to insult unavenged."
When this extraordinary explanation had proceeded thus far, the warder
appeared, to place before Lord Glenvarloch a meal, which, for his present
situation, might be called comfortable, and which, if not equal to the cookery of the celebrated Chevalier Beaujeu, was much superior in neatness and
cleanliness to that of Alsatia. A warder attended to do the honours of the
table, and made a sign to the disguised female to rise and assist him in his
functions. But Nigel declared that he knew the youth's parents, interfered,
and caused his companion to eat along with him. She consented with a
sort of embarrassment, which rendered her pretty features yet more interesting. Yet she maintained with a natural grace that sort of good-breeding
Which belongs to the table; and it seemed to Nigel, whether already prejudiced in her favour by the extraordinary circumstances of their meeting,
or whether really judging from what was actually the fact, that he had
seldom seen a young person comport herself with more decorous propriety,
mixed with ingenuous simplicity; while the consciousness of the peculiarity
of her situation threw a singular colouring over her whole demeanour, which
could be neither said to be formal, nor easy, nor embarrassed, but was
compounded of, and shaded with, an interchange of all these three characteristics. Wine was placed on the table, of which she could not be prevailed
on to taste a glass. Their conversation was, of course, limited by the
presence of the warder to the business of the table; but Nigel had, long
mre the cloth was removed, formed the resolution, if possible, of making
himself master of this young person's history, the more especially as he