ng all the time, and its speed is as good and its voice
as clear and musical as when the morning stars sang together and all
the sons of God shouted for joy. Many a wild story it could tell if
its murmur could be understood; but it is a murmur only--a murmur
which crept into the ears of Caesar's legions, of Queen Mary, of Bessie
Ormiston, and will creep into yours, O reader! if you like to go
and explore the Lady's Walk, when you can interpret the murmur for
yourself, as all your predecessors no doubt did. In days of old it
fed the moat, traces of which are to be seen round the castle still,
although it has long since been filled up and covered, like the park
of which it forms part, with rich natural pasture, soft, thick and
velvety. In short, Cockhoolet had everything that a castle ought to
have, and wanted nothing that a castle ought not to want, not even a
ghost.

It was not the ghost of Mary Stuart: that would have been too
shocking--a ghost without a head, or having a head and a broad vivid
ray of red encircling its neck. Such a ghost would have made every one
who saw it lose his senses. Cockhoolet Castle had a ghost: so much was
certain, but hitherto no one had ever either seen or heard it. How,
then, was it certain? Why ask a question like that? Is it reasonable
to pin a human being down to prove a ghost? Will not presumptive
evidence do? Strange things had happened, must have happened, at
the castle: is it for a moment to be supposed that these things had
happened and all gone scot free?--in other words, that not one of them
had left a ghost? It is not to be supposed.

II.

It was Christmas Day. Christmas Day is not solemnized and festivalized
in Scotland as it is in England; still, the observance of it in some
shape is creeping in more and more. It was Christmas, and Mr. and Mrs.
Ormiston had gone to be present at a feast from which they were not
expected to return till the following day. There were left at home the
Rose, as head of the family for the time being; her sisters, Bell and
Jessie, supposed to be little girls still, although the supposition
made them very indignant; and her two brothers, John and William. A
guest aad two servants made up the known inhabitants of the house.

The guest was a young man who had arrived before the heads of the
house left, and had been laughingly charged by them to see that the
children did not work mischief. He was an old friend of the family; at
least as old