in affright. Nelly Carnegie, whom he had humbled to the
dust, was below his anger.

When the grey mansion of Staneholme basked in the autumn sun, an
auspicious event gladdened its chambers. Joan was matched with a gay,
gallant young cousin from Teviotdale, and from the commencement of the
short wooing to the indefatigable dance which the young bride herself
led off right willingly, all was celebrated with smiles and blessings,
and harvest-home fulness of joy and gratitude. But a dark shadow moved
among the merrymakers. A young heart robbed of its rights, like an
upbraiding ghost, regarded the simple, loving, trusting pair, and
compared their consecrated vows with the mockery of a rite into which it
had been driven.

The only change time brought to Nelly, was the progress of an
unacknowledged bond between her and good old Lady Staneholme. The
obstacle to any interchange of ideas and positive confidence between
them, was the inducement to the tacit companionship adopted by the sick,
wayward heart, with its malady of wrong and grief. Influenced by an
instinctive, inexplicable attraction, Nelly's uncertain footsteps
followed Lady Staneholme, and kept pace with her soft tread, when she
overlooked her spinners and knitters, gave out her linen and spices,
turned over her herbs, and visited her sick and aged. There they were
seen--the smiling, deaf old lady, fair in her wrinkles, and her mute,
dark, sad daughter whom in patient ignorance she folded in her mantle of
universal charity.

VI.--THE LAIRD CONSCIENCE-SMITTEN.

Under a pale February sun Nelly was out on the sea-braes, where the
sprays of the briar-roses were swept in circles, streaming far and wide.
She lingered in the hollow, and strayed to the utmost limit of her path.
As she was returning, her eye fell on the folds of an object fluttering
among the tedded grass. It was Staneholme's plaid. This was the first
time he had intruded upon her solitary refuge. When Nelly climbed the
ascent, and saw the mansion house, with its encumbered court, she could
distinguish the sharp sound of a horse's hoof. Its rider was already out
of sight on the bridle-road. Michael Armstrong, the laird's man, was
mounting his own nag; Wat Pringle, the grieve, and other farm folk,
stood looking after the vanished traveller; Liddel, the Tweedside
retriever, paced discontentedly up and down; and old Lady Staneholme met
her on the threshold, and as on the night of her arrival at Staneholme,