caped the superstitions
of the country in which she had lived; and she readily yielded her
assent to the asseverations of her guide as to its being the _bona fide_
blood of _David Rizzio,_ which for nearly three hundred years had
resisted all human efforts to efface.

"My credulity is so harmless," said she in answer to her uncle's attempt
to laugh her out of her belief, "that I surely may be permitted to
indulge it especially since I confess I feel a sort of indescribable
pleasure in it."

"You take a pleasure in the sight of blood!" exclaimed Mr. Douglas in
astonishment, "you who turn pale at sight of a cut finger, and shudder
at a leg of mutton with the juice in it!"

"Oh! mere modern vulgar blood is very shocking," answered Mary, with a
smile; "but observe how this is mellowed by time into a tint that could
not offend the most fastidious fine lady; besides," added she in a
graver tone, "I own I love to believe in things supernatural; it seems
to connect us more with another world than when everything is seen to
proceed in the mere ordinary course of nature, as it is called. I cannot
bear to imagine a dreary chasm betwixt the inhabitants of this world and
beings of a higher sphere; I love to fancy myself surrounded by----"

"I wish to heaven you would remember you are surrounded by rational
beings, and not fall into such rhapsodies," said her uncle, glancing at
a party who stood near them, jesting upon all the objects which Mary had
been regarding with so much veneration. "But come, you have been long
enough here. Let us try whether a breeze on the Calton Hill will not
dispel these cobwebs from your brain."

The day, though cold, was clear and sunny; and the lovely spectacle
before them shone forth in all its gay magnificence. The blue waters lay
calm and motionless. The opposite shores glowed in a thousand varied
tints of wood and plain, rock and mountain, cultured field and purple
moor. Beneath, the old town reared its dark brow, and the new one
stretched its golden lines; while all around the varied charms of nature
lay scattered in that profusion which nature's hand alone can bestow.

"Oh! this is exquisite!" exclaimed Mary after along pause, in which she
had been riveted in admiration of the scene before her. "And you are in
the right, my dear uncle. The ideas which are inspired by the
contemplation of such a spectacle as this are far--oh, how
far!--superior to those excited by the mere works of art. There