but look at his protruding ears and experience an old sensation of
his in the company of the more animal of his fellows, that, after all,
man with a little practice might easily swing among trees or burrow in
the earth.

An ill-trained servant removing empty bottles left the door open behind
his Grace's chair, and through it came the strains of a duet in women's
voices, accompanied by the strumming of a harp. They sang an English air
touching upon groves and moonlit waterfalls, Lady Charlotte lending a
dulcet second to the air of the Duchess, who accompanied them upon her
instrument in sweeping chords and witching faint arpeggios. Into the
room that fumed with tobacco and wine (and the Provost at the second
of his tales in the ear of the advocate) the harmony floated like the
praise of cherubim, and stilled at once the noisy disquisition round the
board.

"Leave the door open," said the Duke to his servants, and they did so.
When the song was done he felt his Jean was calling to him irresistible,
and he suggested that they had better join the ladies. They rose--some
of them reluctantly--from the bottles, Elchies strewing his front again
with snuff to check his hiccoughs. MacTaggart, in an aside to the
Duke, pleaded to be excused for his withdrawal immediately, as he felt
indisposed.

"I noticed that you were gey glum to-night," said Argyll with a kind and
even fraternal tone, for they were cousins and confidants as well as
in a purely business relation to each-other. "I'm thinking we both want
some of the stimulant Elchies and the Provost and the advocate lads take
so copiously."

"Bah!" said the Chamberlain; "but Sassenachs, Argyll, but Sassenachs,
and they need it all. As for us, we're born with a flagon of heather
ale within us, and we may be doing without the drug they must have, poor
bodies, to make them sparkle."

Argyll laughed. "Good-night, then," said he, "and a riddance to your
vapours before the morning's morning."

Mrs. Petullo had begun a song before the Duke entered, a melody of
the Scots mode, wedded to words that at that period hummed round the
country. It was the one triumphant moment of her life--her musically
vocal--when she seemed, even to the discriminating who dive for
character below the mere skin, to be a perfect angel. Pathos, regret,
faith, hope, and love, she could simulate marvellously: the last was
all that was really hers, and even that was lawless. She had not
half-finished the ai