“Weel, bairns, ye see it was the spring season then,” resumed Dragon, “and there was a lang summer time to come--bonnie days--we never have the like of them now--when Leddy Violet was constant at the Well. And the lad--they ca’ed him Sir Harry--came and went, and lay on the grass at her feet, and courted her, and sang to her, and made his reverence, till she learned to think, poor lassie, that there wasna a man like him in a’ the world. So he got acquaint at her father’s house, and courted the auld laird for her, and was about Allenders night and day; and at last it came to pass that they were to be married. “Now, ye see, having mair to do now, when she was soon to be a married wife, she never got out to her auld wanderings, but sat with her maids, and saw them make gowns of silk and satin for the grand bridal; and this very same sma’ fairy that first brought the gentleman to see her, had cast out with her ain lad by this time, and was in a sorrowful humour, and could not keep her hand from aye meddling with the leddy’s concerns. So what did she do, for an imp of mischief as she maun hae been, but flee away to Sir Harry’s ain land, and gather I kenna how mony stories of him; for he had been but a wild lad in his young days, and was nae better than he should be even then. And I canna tell ye, bairns, what art magic it was dune by, but this I ken, that it a’ came to Leddy Violet’s ain ears--every word o’t. Now ye maun mind, that for her ain sel, she was like a saint; no a wee new-born bairn, nor ane of the like of you, mair innocent than her, though she was a woman grown. And nae suner had she heard this, than her maid that was wi’ her, was aware of a sound like the snapping o’ a string. Na, missie, ye couldna guess what that was--it was a sairer thing than you ever heard tell o’ a’ your days--it was Leddy Violet’s heart.” Violet had fixed her dilating melancholy eyes, in which the tears were fast swelling, upon the old man’s face, and sat leaning her head upon her hands, bent forward with the deepest attention; while Katie, arrested suddenly in the very act of balancing herself upon the little canopy, turned a look of eager interest upon him, till released by this conclusion she slipped down, and placed herself very quietly on the fallen tree by his side. In his monotonous, half-chaunting voice, the old man proceeded.