substitutes
for groom and lacquey, in coarse homespun, and honest, broad blue
bonnets. There was bustle in the little dining-room with its high
windows, which the sea-foam sometimes dimmed, and its spindle-legged
chairs and smoked pictures. There was blithe work in the cheerful hall,
in whose broad chimney great seacoal fires blazed--at whose humming
wheels the young Mays of Staneholme, as well as its dependants, still
took their morning turn. There was willing toil in the sleeping-rooms,
with their black cabinets and heavy worsted curtains. And there was a
thronged _melee_ in the court formed by the outhouses, over whose walls
the small-leaved ivy of the coast clustered untreasured. Staneholme's
favourite horse was rubbing down; and Staneholme's dogs were airing in
couples. Even the tenantry of the never-failing pigeon-house at the
corner of the old garden were in turmoil, for half-a-score of their
number had been transferred to the kitchen this morning to fill the
goodly pasties which were to anticipate the blackberry tarts and sweet
puddings, freezing in rich cream. But the sun had sunk behind the moor
where the broom was only budding, and the last sea-mew had flown to its
scaur, and the smouldering whins had leaped up into the first yellow
flame of the bonfires, and the more shifting, fantastic, brilliant
banners of the aurora borealis shot across the frosty sky, before the
first faint shout announced that Staneholme and his lady had come home.
With his wife behind him on his bay, with pistols at his saddle-bow, and
"Jock" on "the long-tailed yad" at his back, with tenant retainers and
veteran domestics pressing round--and ringing shouts and homely huzzas
and good wishes filling the air, already heavy with the smoke of good
cheer--Staneholme rode in. He lifted down an unresisting burden, took in
his a damp, passive hand, and throwing over his shoulder brief, broken
thanks, hurried up the flight of stairs, through the rambling, crooked
passages into the hall.

Staneholme was always a man of few words. He was taken up, as was right,
with the little lady, whose habit trailed behind her, and who never
raised her modest eyes. "Well-a-day! the Laird's bargain was of sma'
buik," thought the retainers, but "Hurrah" for the fat brose and lumps
of corned beef, and the ale and the whisky, with which they are now to
be regaled!

In the hall stood Joan and Madge and Mysie, panting to see their grand
Edinburgh sister. They wer