"No," he said coolly: "when you have indicated to us the residence of your friends，we can write to them，and you may be restored to home."

"That，I must plainly tell you，is out of my power to do; being absolutely without home and friends."

The three looked at me，but not distrustfully; I felt there was no suspicion in their glances: there was more of curiosity. I speak particularly of the young ladies. St. John"s eyes，though clear enough in a literal sense，in a figurative one were difficult to fathom. He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people"s thoughts，than as agents to reveal his own: the which bination of keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than to encourage.

"Do you mean to say," he asked，"that you are pletely isolated from every connection?"

"I do. Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I possess to admittance under any roof in England."

"A most singular position at your age!"

Here I saw his glance directed to my hands，which were folded on the table before me. I wondered what he sought there: his words soon explained the quest.

"You have never been married? You are a spinster?"

Diana laughed. "Why，she can"t be above seventeen or eighteen years old，St. John," said she.

"I am near nineteen: but I am not married. No."

I felt a burning glow mount to my face; for bitter and agitating recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage. They all saw the embarrassment and the emotion. Diana and Mary relieved me by turning their eyes elsewhere than to my crimsoned visage; but the colder and sterner brother continued to gaze，till the trouble he had excited forced out tears as well as colour.

"Where did you last reside?" he now asked.