and acres. Accordingly, off
they set in the new travelling-carriage, with due notice of approach,
heartily welcomed, to Dunstowr Castle, the fine old feudal stronghold of
Robert Stuart, Laird of Glenmuir and Glenmurdock.

The journey, the arrival, and the hearty hospitality; and how the gray
old chieftain kissed his pretty niece; and how welcome her betrothed
Charles and her kind life-long guardian, and her faithful nurse were
made; and how the beacons blazed upon the hill-tops, and the mustering
clan gathered round about old Dunstowr; and how the laird presented to
them all their beautiful future mistress, and how Jeanie Mackie and her
documents travelled up to Edinburgh, where writers to the signet
pestered her heart-sick with over-caution; and how the case was all
cleared up, and the distant disappointed cousin, who had irrationally
hoped to be the heir, was gladdened, if not satisfied, with a pension
and a cantle of Glenmuir; and how all was joyfulness and feasting, when
Amy Stuart was acknowledged in her rights--the bagpipes and the wassail,
salmon, and deer, and black-cock, with a river of mountain dew: let
others tell who know Dunstowr; for as I never was there, of course I
cannot faithfully describe it. Should such an historian as I condescend
to sheer inventions?

With respect to Jeanie Mackie, I could learn no more than this: she was
sprightly and lively, and strong as ever, though in her ninetieth year,
till her foster-child was righted, and the lawyers had allowed her her
claim. But then there seemed nothing else to live for; so her life
gradually faded from her eye, as an expiring candle; and she would doze
by the hour, sitting on a settle in the sun, basking her old heart in
the smile of those old mountains. None knew when she died, to a minute;
for she died sitting in the sun, in the smile of those old mountains.

They buried her, with much of rustic pomp, in the hill-church of
Glenmuir, where all her fathers slept around her; and Emily and Charles,
hand-in-hand, walked behind her coffin mournfully.

CHAPTER XXX.

FINAL.

Gladly would the laird have had marriage at Dunstower, and have given
away the beauteous bride himself: but there must still be two months
more of decent mourning, and the general had long learned to sigh for
the maligned delights of Burleigh Singleton. So, Glenmuir could only get
a promise of reappearance some fine summer or other: and, after another
day's deer-stalking,