ey were
mingled steps--a feeble hurrying footfall, and an iron tread. She
threaded a group of bystanders, and, weak and helpless as she was,
prepared to dive into a mirk close. Not that black opening, Nelly
Carnegie, it is doomed to bear for generations a foul stain--the scene
of a mystery no Scottish law-court could clear--the Begbie murder. But
it was no seafaring man, with Cain's red right hand, that rushed after
trembling, fainting Nelly Carnegie. The tender arms in which she had
lain as an infant clutched her dress; and a kindly tongue faltered its
faithful, distressed petition--

"Come back, come back, Miss Nelly, afore the Leddy finds out; ye hae nae
refuge, an' ye're traced already by mair than me."

But in a moment strong hands were upon her, holding her like a
fluttering moth, or a wild panting leveret, or a bird beating its wings;
doing her no violence, however, for who would brush off the down, or
tear the soft fur, or break the ruffled feathers? She struggled so
frantically that poor old Nanny interposed--

"Na, sir; let her be; she'll gae hame wi' me, her ain born
serving-woman. And oh, Staneholme, be not hard, it's her last nicht."

That was Nelly Carnegie's marriage eve.

On the morrow the marriage was celebrated. The bridegroom might pass, in
his manly prime and his scarlet coat, although a dowf gallant; but who
would have thought that Nelly Carnegie in the white brocade which was
her grandmother's the day that made her sib to Rothes--Nelly Carnegie
who flouted at love and lovers, and sported a free, light, brave heart,
would have made so dowie a bride? The company consisted only of Lady
Carnegie's starched cousins, with their husbands and their daughters,
who yet hoped to outrival Nelly with her gloomy Lauderdale laird.

The hurried ceremony excused the customary festivities. The family party
could keep counsel, and preserve a discreet blindness when the ring
dropped from the bride's fingers, and the wine stood untasted before
her, while Lady Carnegie did the honours as if lonely age and narrow
circumstances did not exist.

IV.--NELLY CARNEGIE IN HER NEW HOME.

The March sun shone clear and cold on grey Staneholme, standing on the
verge of a wide moor, with the troubled German Ocean for a background,
and the piping east wind rattling each casement. There was haste and
hurry in Staneholme, from the Laird's mother down through her buxom
merry daughters to the bareheaded servant-lasses, and the