On this night the castle must have thought old times had come back again, there was such a large and miscellaneous company beneath its roof. But where were the knights in armor, the courtiers in velvet and satin, the boars' heads, the venison pasties, the wassail-bowls? Where were the stately dames in stiff brocade, the shaven priests, the fool in motley, the vassals, the yeomen in hodden gray and broad blue bonnet? Not there, certainly. No doubt, Lady Arthur Eildon was a direct descendant of one of "the queen's Maries," but in her rusty black gown, her old black bonnet set awry on her head, her red face, her stout figure, made stouter by a sealskin jacket, you could not at a glance see the connection. The house of Eildon was pretty closely connected with the house of Stuart, but George Eildon in his tweed suit, waterproof and wideawake looked neither royal nor romantic. We may be almost sure that there was a fool or fools in the company, but they did not wear motley. In short, as yet it is difficult to connect the idea of romance with railway rugs, waterproofs, India-rubbers and wide-awakes and the steam of tea and coffee: three hundred years hence perhaps it may be possible. Who knows? But for all that, romances go on, we may be sure, whether people are clad in velvet or hodden gray. Lady Arthur was framing a romance--a romance which had as much of the purely worldly in it as a romance can hold. She found that George was on his way to see his cousin, Lord Eildon, who within two days had had a severe access of illness. It seemed to her a matter of certainty that George would be duke of Eildon some day. If she had only had the capacity to have despatched that letter she had written when she believed she was dying, after him to Australia! Could she send it to him yet? She hesitated: she could hardly bring herself to compromise the dignity of Alice, and her own. She had a short talk with him before they separated for the night. "I think you should go home by railway to-morrow," he said. "It is blowing fresh now, and the trains will all be running to-morrow. I am sorry I have to go by the first in the morning, so I shall probably not see you then," "I don't know," she said: "it is a question if Alice will be able to travel at all to-morrow." "She is not ill, is she?" he said. "It is only a little fatigue from exposure that ails her, isn't it?" "But it may have bad consequences," said Lady Arthur: "one never can tell;" and she spoke in an injured way, for George's tones were not encouraging. "And John, my coachman--I haven't seen him--he ought to have been at hand at least: if I could depend on any one, I thought it was him." "Why, he was overcome in the drift to-day: your other man had to leave him behind and ride forward for help. It was digging him out of the snow that kept us so long in getting to you. He has been in bed ever since, but he is getting round quite well." "I ought to have known that sooner," she said.