'And away from contrasts, you mean; but excuse me; I am neither so facile nor so inflammable as that comes to; yet I do know a handsome girl when I see one; and by Jove, little Ellinor is one to cultivate. Two such girls living there alone seems a singular proceeding.' 'In your eyes, I have no doubt,' replied Colville, stooping to light a cigar, and hide the expression of annoyance that crossed his face; 'but it is not so much, perhaps, in the place where their parents have been respected; and where all know them well, and seem to love them.' 'Dressed as I could dress her,' continued Sleath, still pursuing one thought, and that an evil one, 'she would make quite a sensation--never saw such hair and eyes, by Jove.' 'What do you mean?' asked Leslie Colville, coldly. 'Well, among other things, I mean that she is a deal too pretty to be thrown away upon that Scotch country clodhopper, who is evidently spoony upon her--has known her all her life, and all that sort of thing, don't you know.' 'Whom do you mean now?' 'This--well--ah--what's his deuced name--Robert Wodrow.' 'The son of a very worthy man--a friend of mine, Sir Redmond.' 'Oh--ah--indeed.' Colville's face darkened and grew rather stern. Why? We shall be able to let a little light on his secret emotion in time to come. Meanwhile the speakers were the source of some speculation among those they had just quitted. 'Who are those gentlemen, Dr. Wodrow?' asked Mary. 'Captain Colville, of the Household Brigade, and Sir Redmond Sleath, a baronet, and wealthy, I believe, friends of the Dunkeld family, come here for the Twelfth. Are you pleased with them?' 'Oh, yes,' replied Ellinor, but Mary remained silent. 'Perhaps one may prove like the hunter who came in the olden time to hunt here, and wooed the pretty maid of Forteviot,' said the doctor, laughing, and pinching her soft cheek. 'And Captain Colville is engaged to Blanche Galloway, is he not?' she asked. 'So I believe. A man of undoubted wealth, he has lately succeeded to property of various kinds, and means, it is said, to urge his claim in the female line to the peerage of Ochiltree, which has been dormant since the death of David, fourth lord, in 1782. He has thus assumed the name of Colville.' 'Lord Colville of Ochiltree,' said Mary, softly and thoughtfully. 'Yes--he claims that peerage, my dear,' replied Dr. Wodrow. 'I have a great and melancholy respect for our dormant, extinct, and--more than all--for our attainted peerages. The men who held them were generally, if not all, true to Scotland, which is more than we can say for our mongrel and often cockney-born peers of the present day; but Captain Colville would be one, good, honest, and true, I doubt not.' 'And his own name?'