swift motion the various wheels of Otter, not even if--unlooked for and
undesired sequel!--she received express permission to dance upon the
head of old Bridget.

Leslie had fancied once, when Hector Garret told her how few neighbours
lived within visiting distance, that she should not want society: but
the solitude was matter of regret, especially when it proved that of the
few families who exchanged rare intercourse, some of better birth than
breeding scarcely held the daughter of the disinherited laird and
Glasgow scholar as their equal in social rank, or a spouse worthy of the
master of Otter, or indeed entitled to their special esteem.

The only house without any pretension within sight of Otter was situated
at the other extremity of the bay, on a peninsula projecting far into
the sea. It had been built in the days when each mansion was a
fortalice, and when safety from enemies was of more moment than the
convenience of friends.

This Earlscraig was now little more than a grim, grey turret, seldom
occupied; the companion body of the building had been destroyed nearly a
score of years before by a fire--the tragedy of the country-side, as it
consummated the ruin of an old family--and in its horrors a lady of the
house perished miserably. So the sight of its cold cluster of chimneys,
wind-rocked walls, and scorched and crumbling vestiges of sudden
destruction, far from adding to the cheerfulness of the landscape, was a
blot on its rural prosperity.

The homes of humbler friends were foreign thresholds to Leslie; the
reserved, engrossed, dignified master of Otter crossed them with a freer
step. Leslie could but address her servants, and venture to intermeddle
bashfully with their most obvious concerns. She had neither tongue nor
eye for more distant and difficult dependants.

But Leslie was not dying of ennui or spleen, or miserable and with a
nameless fathomless misery. She was only disenchanted--conscious of
feeling a great deal older than she had done six months since. How could
she have been so credulous, so vain! Verily, every path of roses has its
panoply of thorns.

IV.--THE PAGES OF THE PAST.

One winter night Leslie, in her deep chair, observed Hector Garret
turning over the leaves of an old pocket-book. Hector; catching her eye,
offered it to her with a "See, Leslie, how my father chronicled the
fashions"--he never did suppose her susceptible of very grave interests.

In the dearth of other amuse