As I have stated, we had met frequently before, at Canterbury, Bath, and elsewhere. Her society had been to me a source of greater pleasure and excitement than that of any other woman in whose way chance had thrown me. Her rank, as the daughter of an earl, and her rare beauty had dazzled me, while her coquetry had piqued my vanity; though I imagined that, without discovering the deep interest she excited in my heart, I had taught her to view me as an object of more interest than other men. I approached, and she received me calmly, placidly, with a bright but conventional smile, from which I could augur or gather nothing. In her there was none of the clamorous tremor which I felt in my own breast, where something of annoyance at the coldness of her mother’s bow was rankling. "Lady Louisa—permit me," said I, proffering my arm. "Too late, Mr. Norcliff. I am already engaged," she replied, rising, and placing her pretty gloved hand on the arm of old General Rammerscales, who, bowing and smiling with gratified vanity, remarked to me in passing— "Been to India, I presume?" "Yes, general, and Rangoon, too." "Bah! ’tisn’t what it used to be in my time—the Indian service is going to the deuce." "But I belong to the Lancers." "Ah!" A daughter of the liberal M.P., Spittal, of Lickspittal, fell to my lot—a pretty piece of muslin and insipidity; but luckily we were seated not far from Lady Loftus. Near us were Miss Wilford and Berkeley, who proved less inattentive than I during the dinner, which proceeded with more joviality and laughter than is usual in such society; but the guests, twenty-four in number, were somewhat varied, for on this occasion the minister, doctor, and lawyer of the parish, the provost of a neighbouring burgh, and other persons out of the baronet’s circle, were present. In that old Scottish château, the mode of life was deprived of all ostentation, though luxurious and even fashionable. The great oak table in the dining-room was covered with plenty, and with every delicacy of the season; but in its details it partook more of the baronial hall than such apartments usually do. It was floored with encaustic tiles, amid the pattern of which the arms of the Calderwoods were reproduced again and again; and at each end sparkled and glowed a great fire of coals from the baronet’s own pits, with the smouldering remains of a great yule log that had grown in his own woods, and had been perhaps a green sapling when James V. kept court in Falkland. In the centre of this dining-hall lay a soft Turkey carpet for the feet of those who were seated at table. The chairs were all square backed, well cushioned with green velvet, and dated from the time of James VII.; the walls were of dark varnished wainscot, decorated with old portraits and stags’ antlers; for there was here a curious blending of old baronial state with the comforts and tastes of modern times and modern luxury.