Florian's thoughts were peculiarly his own. His father's death--though called an uncle now, but Florian always felt for and thought of him as a parent--the loss of Dulcie, their abrupt departure from Devonshire, and rough uprootal of all early associations, had made a kind of hiatus in the young fellow's life, and it was only now when he found himself amid the strange streets and picturesque splendour of Edinburgh that he began--like one recovering consciousness after a long illness--to gather up again the ravelled threads of thought, but with curious want of concern and energy; while Shafto felt that he personally had both, and that now he required to have all his wits about him. Florian stood for a time that night at the door of their hotel in Princes Street looking at the wonderful lights of the Old Town sparkling in mid air, and some that were in the Castle must, he thought, be stars, they were so high above the earth. Scores of cabs and carriages went by, eastward and westward, but no carts or wains or lorries, such as one sees in London or Glasgow--vehicles with bright lamps and well muffled occupants, gentlemen in evening suits, and ladies in ball or dinner dresses, and crowds of pedestrians, under the brilliant gas lights and long boulevard-like lines of trees--the ever-changing human panorama of a great city street before midnight. How odd, how strange and lonely poor Florian felt; he seemed to belong to no one, and, like the Miller o' Dee, nobody cared for him; and ever and anon his eyes rested on the mighty castled rock that towers above streets, monuments, and gardens, with a wonderous history all its own, 'where treasured lie the monarchy's last gems,' and with them the only ancient crown in the British Isles. 'Brave kings and the fairest of crowned women have slept and been cradled in that eyrie,' says an enthusiastic English writer; 'heroes have fought upon its slopes; English armies have stormed it; dukes, earls, and barons have been immured in its strong dungeons; a sainted Queen prayed and yielded up her last breath there eight centuries ago. It is an imperishable relic--a monument that needs no carving to tell its tale, and it has the nation's worship; and the different church sects cling round its base as if they would fight again for the guardianship of a venerable mother..... And if Scotland has no longer a king and Parliament all to herself, her imperial crown is at least safely kept up there amid strong iron stanchions, as a sacred memorial of her inextinguishable independence, and, if need were, for future use.' Florian was a reader and a thinker, and he felt a keen interest in all that now surrounded him; but Shafto lurked in a corner of the smoke-room, turning in his mind the task of the morrow, and unwisely seeking to fortify himself by imbibing more brandy and soda than Florian had ever seen him take before.