kes! Eh, Sim? But
then women like my Jean are not common either or marriages were less
fashions. Upon my word, I could saddle Jock and ride this very night
to Luss, just to have the fun of throwing pebbles at her window in the
morning, and see her wonder and pleasure at finding me there. Do you
know what, cousin? I am going to give a ball when she comes home. We'll
have just the neighbours, and I'll ask M. Soi-disant, who'll give us
the very latest step. I like the fellow's voice, it rings the
sterling metal.... And now, my lords, this action on the part of the
Government.... Oh, the devil fly away with politics! I must go to a
lonely bed!" And off set Mac-Cailen Mor, the noble, the august, the man
of silk and steel, whom 'twas Simon MacTaggart's one steadfast ambition
in life to resemble even in a remote degree.

And then we have the Chamberlain in his turret room, envious of that
blissful married man, and warmed to a sympathetic glow with Olivia
floating through the images that rose before him.

He drew the curtains of his window and looked in that direction where
Doom, of course, was not for material eyes, finding a vague pleasure in
building up the picture of the recluse tower, dark upon its promontory.
It was ten o'clock. It had been arranged at their last meeting that
without the usual signal he should go to her to-night before twelve.
Already his heart beat quickly; his face was warm and tingling with
pleasant excitation, he felt a good man.

"By God!" he cried. "If it was not for the old glaur! What for does
heaven--or hell--send the worst of its temptations to the young and
ignorant? If I had met her twenty years ago! Twenty years ago! H'm!
'Clack!' goes the weaver's shuttle! Twenty years ago it was her mother,
and Sim MacTaggart without a hair on his face trying to kiss the good
lady of Doom, and her, perhaps na' half unwilling. I'm glad--I'm glad."

He put on a pair of spurs, his fingers trembling as those of a lad
dressing for his first ball, and the girl a fairy in white, with her
neck pink and soft and her eyes shy like little fawns in the wood.

"And how near I was to missing it!" he thought. "But for the scheming
of a fool I would never have seen her. It's not too late, thank the Lord
for that! No more of yon for Sim MacTaggart. I've cut with the last of
it, and now my face is to the stars."

His hands were spotless white, but he poured some water in a basin
and washed them carefully, shrugging his