One old woman, wearing one of those peculiar caps which Mary of Gueldres introduced in Scotland, with a black band—the badge of widowhood—over it, appeared at the door of a little thatched cottage, and directed us by a near bridle-path to the ruin, smiling pleasantly as she did so. "Newton," said Cora, "you remember old Kirsty Jack?" "Perfectly," said I; "many a luggie of milk I have had from her in past years." Cora always wondered why people loved her, and why all ranks were so kind to her; but the good little soul was all unaware that her girlish simplicity of manner, her softness of complexion and feature, her winning sweetness of expression and modulation of voice, were so alluring. Had she been so, the charm had, perhaps, vanished, or had become more dangerous by the exercise of coquetry. Often when I looked at her, the idea occurred to me that if I had not been dazzled by Lady Louisa, I should certainly have loved Cora. The cottage bore a signboard inscribed, "_Christian Jack—a callender[*] by the hour or piece_," an announcement which caused some speculation among our English friends; and ignorant alike of its origin and meaning, or what is more probable, affecting to be so, Berkeley laughed immoderately at the word, simply because it was not English. [*] Literally a mangle, from _calandre_, the French. The term has been common all over Scotland for centuries. In Paris there is a street named Rue de la Calandre. "Christian Jack—Presbyterian John, I should suggest," said he, as we cantered along the bridle-path, in Indian file, Cora at our head, with a firm little hand on her reins, her blue veil and her skirt, and two long black ringlets, floating behind her. Lady Louisa followed close, her jet hair gathered up in thick and elaborate rolls by the artful fingers of her French _soubrette_; her larger and more voluptuous figure displayed to the utmost advantage by her tight riding-habit; and now, in a few minutes, the old ruin, with all its gaping windows, loomed in sight. It was not an object of much interest, save to Cora and myself, for it had been the scene of many a picnic and visit in childhood, and had been long the seat of a branch of the Calderwoods now extinct and passed away. Some strange and quaint legends were connected with it; and Willie Pitblado, old Kirsty at the Loanend, and Cora’s nurse, had told us tales of the old lairds of Piteadie, and their "clenched hand," which was carved above the gate, that made us feel far from comfortable in the gloomy winter nights, when the vanes creaked overhead, and when the wind that howled down the wooded glen shook the cawing rooks in their nests and made the windows of old Calderwood House rattle in their sockets.