"Oh no," said Mr. Ogilvie, as he once more adventured his person in a cab. "And I can tell you it is much better--if you look at the thing philosophically, as poor wretches like you and me must--to drive to a crush in a hansom than in your own carriage. You don't worry about your horses being kept out in the rain; you can come away at any moment; there is no fussing with servants, and rows because your man has got out of the rank--HOLD UP!" Whether it was the yell or not, the horse recovered from the slight stumble: and no harm befel the two daring travellers. "These vehicles give one some excitement," Macleod said--or rather roared, for Piccadilly was full of carriages. "A squall in Loch Scridain is nothing to them." "You'll get used to them in time," was the complacent answer. They dismissed the hansom at the corner of Piccadilly, and walked up Park Lane, so as to avoid waiting in the rank of carriages. Macleod accompanied his companion meekly. All this scene around him--the flashing lights of the broughams, the brilliant windows, the stepping across the pavement of a strangely dressed dignitary from some foreign land--seemed but some other part of that dream from which he had not quite shaken himself free. His head was still full of the sorrows and coquetries of that wild-spirited heroine. Whither had she gone by this time--away into some strange valley of that unknown world? He was better able than Mr. Ogilvie to push his way through the crowd of footmen who stood in two lines across the pavement in front of Beauregard House, watching for the first appearance of their master or mistress; but he resignedly followed, and found himself in the avenue leading clear up to the steps. They were not the only arrivals, late as the hour was. Two young girls, sisters, clad in cream-white silk with a gold fringe across their shoulders and sleeves, preceded them; and he was greatly pleased by the manner in which these young ladies, on meeting in the great hall an elderly lady who was presumably a person of some distinction, dropped a pretty little old-fashioned courtesy as they shook hands with her. He admired much less the more formal obeisance which he noticed a second after. A royal personage was leaving; and as this lady, who was dressed in mourning, and was leaning on the arm of a gentleman whose coat was blazing with diamond stars, and whose breast was barred across with a broad blue ribbon, came along the spacious landing at the foot of the wide staircase, she graciously extended her hand and said a few words to such of the ladies standing by as she knew. That deep bending of the knee he considered to be less pretty than the little courtesy performed by the young ladies in cream-white silk. He intended to mention this matter to his cousin Janet.