ects of
grief, as they were displayed in the rude and weatherbeaten visage of
the fisherman, and the masculine features of his wife. He approached
the old woman as she was seated on her usual settle, and asked her, in
a tone as audible as his voice could make it, "Are you Elspeth of the
Craigburnfoot of Glenallan?"

"Wha is it that asks about the unhallowed residence of that evil woman?"
was the answer returned to his query.

"The unhappy Earl of Glenallan."

"Earl!--Earl of Glenallan!"

"He who was called William Lord Geraldin," said the Earl; "and whom his
mother's death has made Earl of Glenallan."

"Open the bole," said the old woman firmly and hastily to her
daughter-in-law, "open the bole wi' speed, that I may see if this be
the right Lord Geraldin--the son of my mistress--him that I received in my
arms within the hour after he was born--him that has reason to curse me
that I didna smother him before the hour was past!"

The window, which had been shut in order that a gloomy twilight
might add to the solemnity of the funeral meeting, was opened as she
commanded, and threw a sudden and strong light through the smoky and
misty atmosphere of the stifling cabin. Falling in a stream upon the
chimney, the rays illuminated, in the way that Rembrandt would have
chosen, the features of the unfortunate nobleman, and those of the old
sibyl, who now, standing upon her feet, and holding him by one hand,
peered anxiously in his features with her light-blue eyes, and holding
her long and withered fore-finger within a small distance of his face,
moved it slowly as if to trace the outlines and reconcile what she
recollected with that she now beheld. As she finished her scrutiny, she
said, with a deep sigh, "It's a sair--sair change; and wha's fault is
it?--but that's written down where it will be remembered--it's written on
tablets of brass with a pen of steel, where all is recorded that is done
in the flesh.--And what," she said after a pause, "what is Lord Geraldin
seeking from a poor auld creature like me, that's dead already, and only
belongs sae far to the living that she isna yet laid in the moulds?"

"Nay," answered Lord Glenallan, "in the name of Heaven, why was it that
you requested so urgently to see me?--and why did you back your request
by sending a token which you knew well I dared not refuse?"

As he spoke thus, he took from his purse the ring which Edie Ochiltree
had delivered to him at Glenallan House. The