The mosaics were purchased, and Gotterimo, after receiving considerable charitable donations, dismissed; while Mrs. Montgomery’s agitation of spirits was, at length, in some degree composed, by Mr. Jackson’s reminding her that the necklace must have been parted with many years ago, by those of whom she thought; and that, its having since passed into the hands of a knot of swindlers, was by no means a remarkable circumstance. CHAPTER V. … “On the shadowy margin Of the lake, in a spot sequester’d.” “Can that noise be the bagpipes?” said Frances to Julia, trying to look from an upper window in one of the turrets of Arandale Castle. But no object immediately near the building could be discerned from windows situated as were those of this apartment. The more removed prospect, however, was rich and magnificent. Woods, which seemed interminable, every where met the eye; with, here and there, an opening among their ranges, displaying a grassy avenue which ran along till lost again in the far perspective of grove meeting grove. In some of those avenues stood herds of deer, looking around them with an air of the most stately security; in others, even hares and rabbits were sometimes seen to venture from under cover, cross a path, and disappear again, whilst innumerable cawing rooks, continually passing and repassing each other’s heavy flight, hovered over all the summits of the trees; and in their branches sat gay plumed peacocks, uttering, from time to time, their wild cry. To complete the picture, one of the grassy avenues already described, terminated in a smooth, still sheet of water, an arm of which was crossed, at a considerable height, by a light bridge of iron work; while, on its glassy surface, sailed two snow white swans, the sole visible inhabitants of this their watery realm. “It is the bagpipes, my Lady,” said Alice Smyth, “the housekeeper told me to tell your ladyships, that that was the way your ladyships would know when breakfast was ready. The old piper walks up and down under the windows, playing highland tunes all the time of breakfast, which my Lady Arandale makes herself every day at ten o’clock, and never waits for any body, but sends all away again at eleven, let who will or will not come down.” “And does her ladyship make no allowance for the first morning after a long journey?” said Frances, (for they had all arrived at Arandale but the night before); “I declare my limbs are quite stiff. But we had better make haste, or, by Alice’s account, we shall have no breakfast,” she continued, taking her sister’s arm.