as on a shady lane, through which the young
lord often rode in the pleasant autumn mornings or evenings, sometimes
with a gay party of ladies and gentlemen, guests at the Castle,
sometimes, when the hour was early, quite alone, and sometimes with one
beautiful dark-eyed lady, fresh as a rose and proud as a lily, who it
was said was one day to be the mistress of Dundale Castle. The Grey
children, little Effie and Jamie, noticed that when the young lord rode
by himself, or with ever so large a party of riders, he never failed to
acknowledge their bows and courtesies with a nod and a pleasant word
and smile; but that when he and the dark-eyed lady together ambled
slowly past, he did not seem to see their wistful little faces at all.
So, in their secret hearts, they took something very like a spite
against the beautiful Lady Evelyn, and hoped their young lord would
change his mind.

One autumn evening, as Margaret Grey rode homeward from the
market-town, she noticed that Rab, the pony, was languid and slow, that
he hung his head dejectedly, and made no effort to browse along the
hedge-rows as usual. She supposed that he was tired with his day's
work, but trusted that he would be well in the morning. Alas! when the
morning came, poor, faithful old Rab was found dead, stretched out
stiff and cold in his paddock!

Effie and Jamie grieved passionately over their lost friend and
playfellow. They sat down beside him on the grass, and, looking at his
poor, helpless feet, worn in their service, wept bitterly that they
would carry them along the lane and up the hillside no more; they
patted half fearfully the shaggy neck; which would arch to their
caresses never again; they drew back with a shudder, after touching the
cold lips which had so often eaten the sweet clover from their hands,
and turned with a sense of strange wonder and awfulness from the
death-misted eyes, which had always shone upon them with an almost
human affection.

Margaret Grey wept also,--fewer tears than her children, but sadder.
She had many sweet and mournful memories connected with poor Rab. Her
dear old father gave him to her on her eighteenth birthday. She
remembered many a joyful gallop on his back, through the lanes and over
the moors. She remembered how sometimes she rode him slowly, with his
rein on his neck; for young Angus Grey walked by her side and told her
pleasant news,--always pleasant and interesting, though always about
the same thi