We give it from his Lordship's book verbatim as she read it to Vivian Hammersley, who--cunning rogue--was not indisposed with such a charming and sympathetic companion as Finella to make the most of his fall, and reclined rather luxuriously on the velvet lounge, while she, seated in a dainty little chair, read on; but he scarcely listened, so intent was he on watching her sweet face, her white and perfect ears, her downcast eyelids with their long lashes--her whole self! The Melforts, Lords Fettercairn (Strathfinella) and of that Ilk, take their hereditary title from the old castle of that name, which stands in the Howe of the Mearns, and is sometimes called the Castle of Finella. It is situated on an eminence, and is now surrounded on three sides by a morass. It is enclosed within an inner and an outer wall of oblong form, and occupying half an acre of ground. The inner is composed of vitrified matter, but no lime has been used in its construction. The walls are a congeries of small stones cemented together by some molten matter, now harder than the stones themselves; and the remarkable event for which this castle is celebrated in history is the following: When Kenneth III., a wise and valiant king (who defeated the Danes at the battle of Luncarty, and created on that field the Hays, Earls of Errol, Hereditary Constables of Scotland, and leaders of the Feudal cavalry, thus originating also the noble families of Tweeddale and Kinnoull), was on the throne, his favourite residence was the castle of Kincardine, the ruins of which still remain about a mile eastward of the village of Fettercairn, and from thence he went periodically to pay his devotions at the shrine of St. Palladius, Apostle of the Scots, to whom the latter had been sent by Pope Celestine in the sixth century to oppose the Pelagian heresy, and whose bones at Fordoun were enclosed in a shrine of gold and precious stones in 1409 by the Bishop of St. Andrews. The king had excited the deadly hatred of Finella, the Lady of Fettercairn, daughter of the Earl of Angus, by having justly put to death her son, who was a traitor and had rebelled against him in Lochaber; and, with the intention of being revenged, she prepared at Fettercairn a singular engine or 'infernal machine,' with which to slay the king. This engine consisted of a brass statue, which shot out arrows when a golden apple was taken from its hand. Kenneth was at Kincardine, engaged in hunting the deer, wolf, the badger and the boar, when she treacherously invited him to her castle of Fettercairn, which was then, as Buchanan records, 'pleasant with shady groves and piles of curious buildings,' of which there remained no vestiges when he wrote in the days of James VI.; and thither the king rode, clad in a rich scarlet mantle, white tunic, an eagle's wing in his helmet, and on its crest a glittering _clach-bhuai_, or stone of power, one of the three now in the Scottish regalia.