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 stared at each other. The mutual acquaintance of these two surprised them.

"Did you think you knew this young man, father?" asked Robert; "you must be mistaken."

"Mistaken? oh, no," was the answer; "not at all, although I confess that I was surprised to see him here."

Augustus Reid now expected to hear himself addressed as Torch Eye, in full hearing of Nattie, who was wide awake, just within the adjoining.

"Why, whom do you take him to be?" asked Robert.

"Augustus Reid, to be sure, the son of a worthy merchant in our town; but he must have traveled with dispatch, for I saw him at the depot on the morning I left home, and he did not then seem to have a journey in view."

"Truly, you have the name of the young man," said Robert; "but he was never a sojourner in your section of country."