they meant, and that she herself had seen a great many ghosts
in India. On explanation, however, her ghosts, though quite frightful
enough, turned out to be not at all spiritual: they were things of
common occurrence in the land she had come from,--exposed bodies of the
dead.

Next morning--as the white clouds and thin mist-streaks of the preceding
day had fairly foretold--was close and wet; and the long trail of vapor
which rises from the chasm of the Auldgrande in such weather, and is
known to the people of the neighborhood as the "smoke of the lady's
baking," hung, snake-like, over the river. About two o'clock the rain
ceased, hesitatingly and doubtfully, however, as if it did not quite
know its own mind; and there arose no breeze to shake the dank grass, or
to dissipate the thin mist-wreath that continued to float over the river
under a sky of deep gray. But the ladies, with Buchubai, impatient to
join their friends at Strathpeffer, determined on journeying
notwithstanding; and, availing myself of their company and their
vehicle, I travelled on with them to Dingwall, where we parted. I had
purposed exploring the gray dingy sandstones and fetid breccias
developed along the shores on the northern side of the bay, about two
miles from the town, and on the sloping acclivities between the
mansion-houses of Tulloch and Fowlis; but the day was still unfavorable,
and the sections seemed untemptingly indifferent; besides, I could
entertain no doubt that the dingy beds here are identical in place with
those of Cadboll on the coast of Easter Ross, which they closely
resemble, and which alternate with the lower ichthyolitic beds of the
Old Red Sandstone; and so, for the present at least, I gave up my
intention of exploring them.

In the evening, the sun, far gone down towards its place of setting,
burst forth in great beauty; and, under the influence of a kindly breeze
from the west, just strong enough to shake the wet leaves, the sky flung
off its thick mantle of gray. I sauntered out along the high-road, in
the direction of my old haunts at Conon-side, with, however, no
intention of walking so far. But the reaches of the river, a little in
flood, shone temptingly through the dank foliage, and the cottages under
the Conon woods glittered clear on their sweeping hill-side, "looking
cheerily out" into the landscape; and so I wandered on and on, over the
bridge, and along the river, and through the pleasure grounds of
Conon-ho