where the crazed Blanche of Devan first appears:-- "All in the Trosachs' glen was still, Noontide was sleeping on the hill: Sudden his guide whoop'd loud and high-- 'Murdoch! was that a signal cry?'" "It was indeed," said Francesca, appearing suddenly at an upper window overhanging the garden. "Pardon this intrusion, but the castle people are here," she continued in what is known as a stage whisper,--that is, one that can be easily heard by a thousand persons,--"the castle people and the ladies from Pettybaw House; and Mr. Macdonald is coming down the loaning; but Calamity Jane is making her toilette in the kitchen, and you cannot take Mr. Beresford through into the sitting-room at present. She says this hoose has so few conveniences that it's 'fair sickenin'.'" "How long will she be?" queried Mr. Beresford anxiously, putting "The Lady of the Lake" in his pocket, and pacing up and down between the rows of cabbages. "She has just begun. Whatever you do, don't unsettle her temper, for she will have to prepare for eight to-day. I will send Mr. Macdonald and Miss Macrae to the bakery for gingerbread, to gain time, and possibly I can think of a way to rescue you. If I can't, are you tolerably comfortable? Perhaps Miss Grieve won't mind Penelope, and she can come through the kitchen any time and join us; but naturally you don't want to be separated, that's the worst of being engaged. Of course I can lower your tea in a tin bucket, and if it should rain I can throw out umbrellas. Would you like your golf-cape, Pen? 'Won'erful blest in weather ye are, mam!' The situation is not so bad as it might be," she added consolingly, "because in case Miss Grieve's toilette should last longer than usual, your wedding need not be indefinitely postponed, for Mr. Macdonald can marry you from this window." Here she disappeared, and we had scarcely time to take in the full humor of the affair before Robin Anstruther's laughing eyes appeared over the top of the high brick wall that protects our garden on three sides. "Do not shoot," said he. "I am not come to steal the fruit, but to succor humanity in distress. Miss Monroe insisted that I should borrow the inn ladder. She thought a rescue would be much more romantic than waiting for Miss Grieve. Everybody is coming out to witness it, at least all your guests,--there are no strangers present,--and Miss Monroe is already collecting sixpence a head for the entertainment, to be given, she says, to Mr. Macdonald's sustentation fund."