herself; but she felt that it was insolent, if not insulting. The curtain, however, was immediately drawn, and she thought the annoyance past, when suddenly the clatter of a horse's feet at the side of the carriage was heard, the curtain was pulled rudely back from without, and the same face which she had before seen was thrust partly into the carriage. The stranger said something in a laughing tone, but Julia heard not what it was, and almost at the same moment she saw an arm stretched out, and a clenched fist strike the intruder a violent blow on the side of the head, while the voice of Austin Jute exclaimed in English, "Take that, for showing so much more impudence than wit. Never thrust your snout where you can't get it out." A scene of strange confusion instantly followed, of which she could only behold or comprehend a small part. She saw Austin Jute off his horse, and the stranger in the same situation. But then Mr. Rhind drew the curtain tight, and tied the thongs. There was a clashing of swords, however, and the combatants seemed to run round and round the vehicle, which, by this time, had stopped, till at length there came a low cry and a deep groan, and then the voice of Austin exclaimed aloud, speaking to the driver, "On!--on to the Place Royale as quick as possible!" CHAPTER XV. We must now change the scene for a while, and carry the reader to a very different part of the world. In a small cabinet in the old castle of Stirling, sat a young man between nineteen and twenty years of age. It was clear, and even a warm day, though the season was winter. No snow, however, had yet fallen; the fields were still green; and the beautiful scene that stretched out beneath the eye, with the tall highlands mounting to the sky on the one side, with the fair lowland scene spread out for miles on the other, displaying all the windings of the Forth on its course towards the sea, little needed the leafy foliage of the spring or summer to render it exquisitely beautiful. It is probable, indeed, that he who built the high turret in which the cabinet was situated, had little thought of affording a beautiful scene to those who occupied it, for its destination was that of a watch tower, and from its peculiar position it commanded the widest possible view to be obtained of the country on three sides. The young man whom I have mentioned, paid as little attention to the fair landscape stretched beneath his eyes as the builder of the tower may be supposed to have done, though he sat near one of the four small windows which it contained, and the casement was wide open. In his hand--as he had cast himself back, resting against the stone-work of the window, with his head leaning forward, and his feet crossed over each other--was a small piece of paper, closely written in a female hand, and oft he gazed upon it, and oft he smiled, and once he raised it to his lips and kissed it. There was something that pleased him well in that paper.