I informed Sophia Challoner that I was deeply obliged for the impulsive gift of friendship and mark of esteem she had offered me, but could not accept either...

My third attempt hovered between gratitude and hauteur, and ended by sounding churlish, as each of the previous attempts had done.

I stared into the fire, and considered of the lady’s circumstances. She was possessed of a competence, an elegant household, a quantity of servants, and seemingly not a care in the world — but for the shadow that crossed her countenance when the memory of certain painful events recurred. She lacked nothing, in fact, but the most necessary articles on earth: love and friendship. From me she sought the latter; and to hurl her generous heart back in her face seemed the height of ill-breeding. That I hesitated to accept a gift for which I clearly longed, was a testament to pride: the pride of straitened gentility and dependent mortification. I was aware, moreover, that I had encouraged Mrs. Challoner’s friendship under false pretenses — and my heart smote me as an ungrateful and scheming wretch.

I drew forward a fourth sheet of paper and dipped my pen into the ink.

I walked my letter to the post quite alone this morning, Martha being far too unwell to rise from her bed. All the usual activity of a Monday went on around me: nursemaids with small children tugging at their arms; carters unloading their goods before the doors of shops that had been closed in respect of the Sabbath; and the hurried arrivals of mail coach and London stage at the principal inns. A glimpse of the public conveyance recalled the boys, Edward and George, to memory. They must be resigned now to a schoolboy existence until the Christmas holidays should release them; it would be a poor visit home this year. I must endeavour to write a letter soon, informing them of the burning of the seventy-four. They might recount the lurid tale throughout the ranks of their forms, and earn considerable distinction from having looked into the vanished ship. The brightness of the autumn day, and the peace it brought my burdened mind, was so powerful a tonic that I could not bear to return immediately to Castle Square; and so from the offices of the Royal Mail I turned towards the water, and took myself along East Street to the premises of Hall’s Circulating Library.

This was a smallish establishment, three steps up from the paving, with ranks of books displayed on shelves that ran from floor to ceiling, and the added provision of comfortable chairs where a few gentlemen, in want of their clubs, were disposed to linger over the current numbers of the London papers. For such ladies as cared to look into an improving work or frivolous novel, a subscription of one pound, four shillings per annum permitted the loan of books; I had inscribed my name on Mr. Hall’s lists upon first arriving in Southampton. Now I glanced through Hours of Idleness, by a young poet named Byron; picked up a new volume of Mr. Scott’s, entitled Marmion; and sank down into one of the library’s chairs to commence the reading of it.

I had not been sitting thus for longer than a few minutes, and had determined that I should like to take the book away with me, when a gentleman whose visage was entirely hidden by a fold of newsprint suddenly thrust the sheets together, rose to his feet, and adjusted his coat of dark blue.

“Miss Austen!” he exclaimed as he reached for his hat. “I should’ve guessed you were a reader. What work have you got there?”

“The most recent issue of Sir Walter Scott’s pen,”

I replied. “How do you do, Mr. Ord?”

“Well enough, thanks. You’ve recovered from that knock on your head, I hope?”

I raised a gloved hand involuntarily to my brow.

“Perfectly. Are you enjoying Southampton? Do you make a very long stay on these shores, or do you intend to return to America soon?”

He smiled at me easily, and replied that if his own wishes were consulted, he should remain in England forever — but that duty, his studies in Maryland, etcetera, conspired to demand his return home. He waited politely while I secured my book, and then conducted me in a gentleman-like fashion to the street, where he declared himself at liberty to escort me to Castle Square.

“You do not go to Netley Lodge this morning?” I enquired benignly.

“Mrs. Challoner expects a large party of guests. I don’t like to be in the way, you know. Can’t wear out my welcome.”

“You were not acquainted with Mrs. Challoner, I understand, before arriving in England?”

Mr. Ord shook his head. “I’ve been moving about the Continent on a kind of Grand Tour for the past six months, handing one letter of introduction after another to people I’ve never met before — and to a soul they’ve been no end obliging. But Mrs. Challoner beats the rest of them all hollow. She’s what you English like to call an Incomparable.”

It was a word for the greatest beauty of the day — for a Diamond of the First Water — and I smiled to hear it on the lips of an American. “It is no wonder, then, that you cannot bear to embark for Maryland!”

He appeared to hesitate. “I’ve a matter of business I must conclude first. On behalf of my guardian.”

“I see. You were so unfortunate as to lose your parents?”

“When I was very young,” he said easily. “I was born here in Hampshire, you know — it’s my native turf. But my mother, being a widow, followed her brother to Spain — my uncle James was in the employ of the Royal Navy.”

“Indeed? He was an officer?”

“Able Seaman,” Mr. Ord replied, “deputed to serve the King of Spain. It was there my family became acquainted with Mrs. Challoner’s late husband — who, though a wine merchant in Oporto, took care that none of the British subjects in the Peninsula fell beyond his ken.”

The statement was so extraordinary, that I nearly laughed in the young man’s face — but a glance revealed that he spoke in all earnestness, and clearly believed the tale he told. That a fellow of such obvious gentility, good breeding, and education should be happy to admit that his uncle was a common sailor, was surprising enough; but that he could, in the same breath, claim that the sailor had been ordered to serve the King of Spain was beyond belief.

“And in America?” I asked hesitantly. “Your family, I must suppose, prospered there?”

“My mother, unfortunately, died but two years after our arrival.”

“I am sorry to hear it.”

“The climate did not agree with her. I was but six years old when she was taken off — and I spent the remainder of my youth under the guardianship of a very great family, the Carrolls of Baltimore, who are distant connexions of my mother’s.”

— who married, it must be assumed, to disoblige her family. Uncle James was undoubtedly Mrs. Ord’s brother by marriage, not birth, as it seemed unlikely that a great family — even in America — would produce so low a member as an Able Seaman.

“How fortunate for you,” I managed. “And it is the Carrolls who determined you ought to tour the Continent? And provided you with letters of introduction?”

Mr. Ord bowed. “Mr. Charles Carroll of Carrollton is never done exerting himself on my behalf. I may safely say that I owe that gentleman — and his family — everything.”

It was a strange story, and one I felt nearly certain must be nine parts fabrication. Had this ingenuous young man, with the fair blond looks of a Greek god, invented the outline of his history on the spot? Was this my reward for too-inquisitive manners? But why, if phantasy were his object, should Mr. Ord choose a seaman for an uncle? Why not turn his father into the son of a lord? An attempt at fiction should have appeared more regular, more predictable, in its elements. The tale was just odd enough to seem. . natural.