Lady Florimel did not confess that she had begun to feel her life monotonous, or mention that she had for some time been cultivating the acquaintance of a few of her poor neighbours, and finding their odd ways of life and thought and speech interesting. She had especially taken a liking to Duncan MacPhail, in which, strange to say, Demon, who had hitherto absolutely detested the appearance of any one not attired as a lady or gentleman, heartily shared. She found the old man so unlike anything she had ever heard or read of!--so full of grand notions in such contrast with his poor conditions; so proud yet so overflowing with service--dusting a chair for her with his bonnet, yet drawing himself up like an offended hidalgo if she declined to sit in it!--more than content to play the pipes while others dined, yet requiring a personal apology from the marquis himself for a practical joke! so full of kindness and yet of revenges!--lamenting over Demon when he hurt his foot, yet cursing, as she overheard him once, in fancied solitude, with an absolute fervour of imprecation, a continuous blast of poetic hate which made her shiver; and the next moment sighing out a most wailful coronach on his old pipes. It was all so odd, so funny, so interesting! It nearly made her aware of human nature as an object of study. But lady Florimel had never studied anything yet, had never even perceived that anything wanted studying, that is, demanded to be understood. What appeared to her most odd, most inconsistent, and was indeed of all his peculiarities alone distasteful to her, was his delight in what she regarded only as the menial and dirty occupation of cleaning lamps and candlesticks; the poetic side of it, rendered tenfold poetic by his blindness, she never saw. Then he had such tales to tell her--of mountain, stream, and lake; of love and revenge; of beings less and more than natural --brownie and Boneless, kelpie and fairy; such wild legends also, haunting the dim emergent peaks of mist-swathed Celtic history; such songs--come down, he said, from Ossian himself--that sometimes she would sit and listen to him for hours together.