“What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?”

“An island thousands of miles off, where they make wine — the butler did tell me — ”

“Madeira?” I suggested.

“Yes, that is it — that is the very word.”

“So he went?”

“Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house: Missis was very high with him; she called him afterwards a ‘sneaking tradesman.’ My Robert believes he was a wine-merchant.”

“Very likely,” I returned; “or perhaps clerk or agent to a wine-merchant.”

Bessie and I conversed about old