"You know not Dorothea Stuart," answered Gowrie. "Were the pursuers close upon your steps, my love, were every danger and misfortune following you close, it would only render you dearer to her--it would only make her whole soul rise to serve you. However, I will write to her this very night, telling her all I wish, and the reasons thereof. You shall carry the letter with you; and if everything is not performed as zealously and punctually as if I were there myself, my mother is changed indeed, and has lost all love for me. Now, dearest Julia, retire to rest; you shall be roused in time, and everything shall be prepared for your departure: alas! that I must add, for our parting, too; but it shall not be a long one, dear girl. Whenever occasion serves that I can get away without observation, I will be on the way to Trochrie, for my heart will lie buried there with you, and even in the midst of crowds I shall be solitary." Julia could not answer, for her heart was too full--it was like a cup brimming over, and the least thing that shook her would have spilt the precious drops within. One silent pressure of the hand, and they parted for the night; but when she was gone, Gowrie stood and mused with sad and painful thoughts, and ere she sought her pillow she bent her head and wept. CHAPTER XXV. There was a fine old house, as we should call it now, but which was then in great part a modern one, although the beating and buffeting of angry winds, and the dark breath of the storm, had blackened it ere more than sixty years had passed since the foundation-stone was laid. It was built in a style of which there are very few specimens in England, though several in France; but that is easily accounted for, inasmuch as during the greater portion of the short period assigned to that particular style, contentions of one kind or another had existed between the court of London and that of Paris, and the communication between England and Italy was extremely limited. Very different had been the case with Scotland, the connexion between which country and France had been cemented by many ties, while an infinite number of the young noblemen of the north completed their education either at Paris or at one of the universities of Italy. The Tudor architecture in churches is well known; and although there is something in the breast of every man of taste which tells him that there is a want of purity of conception and grandeur of design therein, yet it is very beautiful in its kind. So much, however, can hardly be said in favour of the social architecture of the period; and perhaps less still, in point of really good taste, were the pretensions of that Italian style, in which one front of Dirleton House was constructed. The windows were large and many, divided by stone mullions, and having pilasters between, light and airy, but of no order under the sun, and panels covered with rich and fantastic arabesques.