l lose no time in ascertaining."

The Baroness thanked him effusively, and rose to depart with a mind a
little comforted.

"And you won't tell mamma?"

"I never tell a woman anything that is of any importance."

The Baroness was confirmed in her opinion that Sir Justin was not a very
nice man, but she felt an increased confidence in his judgment.

CHAPTER XX

From the gargoyled keep which the cultured enthusiasm of Eleanor and the
purse of her father had recently erected at Lincoln Lodge, the brother
and sister looked over a bend of the river, half a mile of valley road,
a wave of forest country, and the greater billows of the bare hillsides
towering beyond. But out of all this prospect it was only upon the
stretch of road that their eyes were bent.

"Surely one should see their carriage soon!" exclaimed Eleanor.

"Seems to me," said her brother, "that you're sitting something like a
cat on the pounce for this Tulliwuddle fellow. Why, Eleanor, I never
saw you so excited since the first duke came along. I thought that had
passed right off."

"Oh, Ri, I was reading 'Waverley' again last night, and somehow I felt
the top of the keep was the only place to watch for a chief!"

"Why, you don't expect him to be different from other people?"

"Ri! I tell you I'll cry if he looks like any one I've ever seen before!
Don't you remember the Count said he moved like a pine in his native
forests?"

"He won't make much headway like that," said Ri incisively. "I'd sooner
he moved like something more spry than a tree. I guess that Count was
talking through his hat."

But his sister was not to be argued out of her exalted mood by such
prosaic reasoning. She exclaimed at his sluggish imagination, reiterated
her faith in the insinuating count's assurances, and was only withheld
from sending her brother down for a spy-glass by the reflection that she
could not remember reading of its employment by any maiden in analogous
circumstances.

It was at this auspicious moment, when the heart of the expectant
heiress was inflamed with romantic fancies and excited with the suspense
of waiting, and before it had time to cool through any undue delay, that
a little cloud of dust first caught her straining eyes.

"He comes at last!" she cried.

At the same instant the faint strains of the pibroch were gently wafted
to her embattled tower.

"He is bringing his piper! Oh, what a duck he is!"

"Seems to me he is bringing a dozen