'In those days there was an old miller here in Forteviot who had one daughter named Edana, a girl of rare beauty, and who was famed therefor throughout all the land between the Earn and Forth.' 'And, of course, she had lovers in plenty?' 'So the story says; but she would listen to none, nor was her heart stirred, till one morning, about Beltane time, when filling a jar with water at the May, there came riding under the silver birches--for silver birches were here then as now--a marvellously handsome young knight on a white horse, alone and unattended, and courteously he besought her for a draught of water, saying that he had ridden that morning from the Moathill of Scone, and was sorely athirst. 'He wore an eagle's feather in his helmet, from under which his golden hair fell upon his shoulders like that of a girl. His mantle of striped scarlet, violet, and blue was fastened on his breast by a brooch of gold, and the rings of his coat-of-mail shone like silver in the morning sun. 'Edana had never looked on such a face and figure before, and he seemed equally taken by her great, if rustic, loveliness. He lingered with her long in the birchen wood; thither he came again and again, and love between them ripened fast, as it seems always to have done in the olden time, if we are to believe song, ballad, and story. 'The miller ere long heard of these stolen meetings, and his heart filled with alarm lest the so-called handsome stranger who had bewitched or won his daughter's heart might prove some evil spirit of the Flood or Fell; but Edana said he could be no evil spirit who wore a crucifix round his neck, and daily said his prayers in the old chapel of Kirktoun Mailler. 'But the miller uttered an execration under his silver beard, put his battle-axe to the grindstone, and kept watch when next the young knight came; and then, behold, his heart seemed to die within him as he recognised--the king! 'And so in time it quickly came to pass that Edana became the wife of Duncan, King of Scotland--the same king who was slain at Cawdor--and the mother of Malcolm III., who was born at the Holy Hill, and hence an ancestress of Queen Victoria.' With a soft yet strange smile on his face, Colville listened to this old story, and, brief though it was, Sleath, as it was not to his taste, would have yawned, had not good breeding forbade him. 'Perhaps love and romance, too, still linger among the Birks of Invermay,' said he, laughingly, and with some point in his manner; and there came a time when Mary recalled these words and saw their meaning; and now, deeming that their visit had been protracted long enough, the gentlemen rose to depart--Sleath only lingering to kiss his hand to Ellinor--surreptitiously, as he thought, but the jaunty action was detected by Colville. Somehow, Mary thought she wished that Captain Colville--Miss Blanche Galloway's _fiancé_--had not called that afternoon; yet, if asked, she could not have told the reason why.