Since I had become a favourite in Glen Eredine, so many dreams and prophecies had announced me its future mistress, that I had no difficulty in apprehending his meaning. 'Oh! you must let me refuse a little at first for decency-sake, Robert,' said I, laughing. 'Mysel' would fain you do's bidding before you be hindered,' said he; laying his fingers pleadingly upon my arm. 'What if he _would_ see you going down the loan there, and through the wood, with another man's boy in bosom?'--he raised his arm, tracing as he spoke the path towards Cecil's dwelling; then letting it drop unconsciously, he proceeded in his native tongue, as if he had forgotten my presence. 'He would care no more for his fine golden watch, and all the parks and _towns_ of Eredine, than for the wind when _she_ flies by him.'--'But, Robert,' said I, interrupting his mournful reverie, 'how should you all like to have a Saxon mistress in the Castle?'--'If it were so ordered,' answered Robert, 'who could say against?--and we might be very well, though it were so. Just you forget that you're a stepmother, with your leave; and we'll all forget it too.' When I returned to the house, I learnt, what I had indeed inferred from Roban's language, that Cecil had been there. She came to ask medicine and advice for her dying husband; but when told the good news of the day, she retired without suffering Miss Graham's joy to be interrupted by her melancholy errand. Though, after having lived three months in Glen Eredine, I could no longer be surprised at this delicacy, it can never cease to please; and I immediately requested Charlotte to direct our evening walk toward Cecil's cottage. We were received at the door by Cecil, who loaded us both with congratulations; and invited us, as she was accustomed to do, into her chamber of state, or as she phrased it, 'ben a house.' This apartment was at that time no unfavourable specimen of Glen Eredine parlours. It had to be sure an earthen floor not levelled with much nicety, but it was tolerably clean; it was ceiled with whitened boards, lighted by a sashed window, furnished with plane-tree chairs and tables, and ornamented with an open corner cupboard filled with gaudy stone-bowls, and jugs enriched with humble anacreontics. This was not, however, the family room; and, finding that poor James inhabited the other end of the building, we insisted upon adjourning thither.