The rustic community is pervaded in an odd and fascinating manner with the fine flavour of a Court. It has, as it were, a touch of Arcady. Among tales of the great storms and fragments of old legends, curious reflections of high life and gossip of lords and ladies crop up. Not only are noble names and distinguished personages, everyday sounds and friendly acquaintances in this privileged region, but when the great world follows its liege lady here, it is to live in _villiagiatura_, to copy her example in adapting itself to the ways of the place and in cultivating the natives. Courtiers are only courtly in being frankly at ease with the whole human race. Ladies-in-waiting and maids of honour lose their pride of rank and worldly ambition--if they ever had any, stroll about, drop into this or that cottage at will, and have their cronies there as in loftier localities. We hear of this or that marriage, which has yet to be announced in the _Morning Post_; how a noble duke, who was conveniently in attendance on the Prince, once walked with a fair and gentle lady, whose father was in waiting on the Queen, through the birch woods and by the brawling Dee, and a marriage, only too shortlived, came of it. And we end by listening to the piteous details of the swift fading away of the much-loved young duchess. Other names, with which the Court Calendar has made us familiar, are constantly coming to the surface in the conversation, generally in association with some act of cheery good fellowship. The son of an earl found a dog for his mother at one of these cottage hearths, and never returned to the neighbourhood without punctually reporting himself to tell its old mistress how well her former pet was thriving--that it had its dinner with the family in the dining-room, and drove every day with the countess in her carriage. The fine old white house of Abergeldie, with its single-turreted tower, has become the Scotch home of a genial prince and a beautiful princess, who, we may remember, remained steadfastly settled there during the darkening, shortening days of a gloomy autumn, in devoted watch over her lady-in-waiting lying sick, nigh unto death with fever. Abergeldie has another cherished memory, that of the good old Duchess of Kent, for whom Prince Albert first rented the castle, who often stayed in it, accompanied by her son, the Prince of Leiningen, her daughter, the Princess of Hohenlohe, or some member of their families. The peculiar cradle which used to be swung across the Dee here, conveying passengers as well as parcels, has been removed in consequence of the last disaster which befell its progress. An earlier tragedy of a hapless bride and bridegroom who perished in making the passage is still remembered. Remoter traditions, like that of the burning of a witch on Craig-na-Ban, linger in the neighbourhood.