"I am—haw—not much of a reader, Norcliff; but I greatly admire a certain writer, who says that ’Friendship means the habit of meeting at dinner—the highest nobility of the soul being his who pays the reckoning!’" replied Berkeley. "And you always thought that axiom——" "To be doocid good! Slubber is the only old fellow I ever knew who kept pace with the times." "Indeed!" said I, with an affected air of perfect unconcern. "I have heard of him—he is said to have proposed to our fair friend in front." "Ah, may I ask which of them?" "For Lady Louisa." "It is very likely—the families are extremely intimate, and I know that she has gone twice to the Continent in Slubber’s yacht." Berkeley said this with a bearing cooler even than mine; but I was aware that the fellow was scanning me closely through his confounded eyeglass. "His fortune is, I believe, handsome?" "Magnificent! Sixty thousand a year, at least—haw! His father was a reckless fellow in the days of the Regency, going double-quick to the dogs; but luckily died in time to let the estates go to nurse during the present man’s minority. I have heard a good story told of the late Lord Slubber de Gullion, who, having lost a vast sum on the Derby, applied to a well-known broker in town to give him five thousand pounds on my Lady Slubber’s jewels. "’Number the brilliants,’ said he, ’and put false stones in their places; she will never know the difference.’ "’You are mosh too late, my lord,’ replied he of the three six-pounders, with a grin. "’Too late! What the devil do you mean, Abraham?’ "’My Lady Slubbersh shold the diamonds to me three years ago, and these stones are all falsh!’ "So my lord retired, collapsed with rage, to find that a march had been stolen upon him—doocid good, that!" The snow, I have said, had entirely disappeared, save on the summits of the hills; but, swollen by its melting, the wayside runnels bubbled merrily along under the black whins and withered ferns, reflecting the pure blue of the sky overhead. At a place where the road became wider, by a dexterous use of the spurs, I contrived to get my horse between the pads of Cora and Lady Louisa, and so rid myself of Berkeley. We chatted away pleasantly as we rode on at an easy pace, and ere long, on ascending the higher ground, saw the wide expanse of the Firth of Forth shining with all its ripples under the clear winter sun, with the hills of the Lothians opposite, half shrouded in white vapour. I would have given all I possessed to have been alone for half an hour with Louisa Loftus, but no such chance or fortune was given me; and though our ride to the ruined castle was, in itself, of small importance, it proved ultimately the means towards an end.