He made his appearance accordingly one afternoon in the little house inhabited by Miss Eelen, to the great surprise of that lady. It was a very small, gray house, standing at a corner of the village street, with a small garden round it, presenting a curious blank and one-eyed aspect, from the fact that every window that could be spared, and they were not abundant to start with, had been blocked up on account of the window-tax. Miss Eelen’s parlour was dark in consequence, though it had originally been very bright, with a corner window towards the loch and the quay with all its fishing-boats. This, however, was completely built up, and the prospect thus confined to the street and the merchant’s opposite--a little huckster’s shop in which everything was sold from needles to ploughshares. Miss Eelen was fond of this window, it was so cheerful; and it was true that nobody could escape her who went to Robert Duncan’s--the children who had more pennies to spend than was good for them, or the servant girls who went surreptitiously with bottles underneath their aprons. Miss Eelen kept a very sharp eye upon all the movements of the town, but even she acknowledged the drowsiness that comes after dinner, and sat in her big chair near the fire with her back turned to the window, “her stocking” in her lap, and her eyes, as she would have described it, “gathering straes,” when Mr. Douglas paid her that visit. Her cat sat on a footstool on the other side, majestically curling her tail around her person, and winking at the fire like her mistress. The peats were burning with their fervent flameless glow, and comfort was diffused over the scene. When Drumcarro came in Miss Eelen started and instinctively put up her hands to her cap, which in these circumstances had a way of getting awry. “Bless me, Drumcarro! is this you?” “It’s just me,” he said. “I hope they’re all well?” “Very well, I am obliged to you. I just came in to say a word about--the Castle--” “What about the Castle?” with astonished eyes. “I was meaning this nonsense that’s coming on--the ball,” said Mr. Douglas, with an effort. A certain shamefacedness appeared on his hard countenance--something like a blush, if that were a thing possible to conceive. “The ball? Bless us all! have ye taken leave of your senses, Neil?” “Why should I take leave of my senses? I’m informed that the haill country--everybody that’s worth calling gentry will be going. You’re hand and glove with all the clanjamfry. Is that true?” “Who you may mean by ‘clanjamfry’ I cannot say. If you mean that his Grace and her Grace are just bye ordinary pleasant, and the young lords and ladies aye running out and in--no for what I have to give them, as is easy to be seen--” “I’m not surprised,” said Drumcarro; “one of the old Douglas family before the attainder was as good as any one of their new-fangled dukes.”