lasses.
Ye're a freen' o' An'rew Comin's, they tell me, sir: I dinna ken what
to do wi' 's lass, she's that upsettin'! Ye wad think she was ane o'
the faimily whiles; an' ither whiles she 's that silly!"

"I'm sorry to hear it!" said Donal. "Her grandfather and grandmother
are the best of good people."

"I daursay! But there's jist what I hae seen: them 'at 's broucht up
their ain weel eneuch, their son's bairn they'll jist lat gang. Aither
they're tired o' the thing, or they think they're safe. They hae
lippent til yoong Eppy a heap ower muckle. But I'm naither a prophet
nor the son o' a prophet, as the minister said last Sunday--an' said
well, honest man! for it's the plain trowth: he's no ane o' the major
nor yet the minor anes! But haud him oot o' the pu'pit an' he dis no
that ill. His dochter 's no an ill lass aither, an' a great freen' o'
my leddy's. But I'm clean ashamed o' mysel' to gang on this gait. Hae
ye dune wi' yer denner, Mr. Grant?--Weel, I'll jist sen' to clear awa',
an' lat ye til yer lessons."

CHAPTER XVII.

LADY ARCTURA.

It was now almost three weeks since Donal had become an inmate of the
castle, and he had scarcely set his eyes on the lady of the house.
Once he had seen her back, and more than once had caught a glimpse of
her profile, but he had never really seen her face, and they had never
spoken to each other.

One afternoon he was sauntering along under the overhanging boughs of
an avenue of beeches, formerly the approach to a house in which the
family had once lived, but which had now another entrance. He had in
his hand a copy of the Apocrypha, which he had never seen till he found
this in the library. In his usual fashion he had begun to read it
through, and was now in the book called the Wisdom of Solomon, at the
17th chapter, narrating the discomfiture of certain magicians. Taken
with the beauty of the passage, he sat down on an old stone-roller, and
read aloud. Parts of the passage were these--they will enrich my
page:--

"For they, that promised to drive away terrors and troubles from a sick
soul, were sick themselves of fear, worthy to be laughed at.

"...For wickedness, condemned by her own witness, is very timorous, and
being pressed with conscience, always forecasteth grievous things.

"...But they sleeping the same sleep that night, which was indeed
intolerable, and which came upon them out of the bottoms of inevitable
hell,

"Were partly vexed with