'Get me a golden pheasant's wing for my hat, dear Roland,' said Annot laughingly, as he came forth with his favourite breechloader from the gun-room; and though such birds were scarce in the East Neuk, the request proved somewhat of a fatal one, as we shall show; but Annot had no foreboding of that when, with her usual childish effusiveness, she bade Roland farewell, as he went to join the group of sportsmen and dogs at the _porte-cochère_. 'You have no father, I believe, Miss Drummond?' said Mrs. Lindsay, who had been observing her. 'No; poor papa died quite suddenly about two years ago,' was the reply. 'Suddenly?' queried Mrs. Lindsay, becoming interested. 'Yes,' said Annot hesitatingly. 'In what way--by an accident?' 'Oh, dear--no.' 'How then?' 'Of disease of the heart; we never suspected it, but he dropped down dead--quite dead--while poor mamma was speaking to him about a drive in the park--but oh! what have I said to startle you so?' she added, on perceiving that Mrs. Lindsay grew pale as ashes, and half closing her eyes, pressed her hand upon her left breast, a custom she had when excited. 'Nothing--nothing--only a faintness,' she said, with something of irritation; 'it is the wind without.' 'But there is none,' urged Annot. 'I often feel this when stormy weather is at hand,' replied the other with an attempt at a smile, but a ghastly one; and Annot said no more, as she had already seen that the slightest reference to her secret ailment irritated Mrs. Lindsay, who abruptly left her. 'There is not much liking lost between us,' thought the young lady, as she adjusted in the breast of her morning dress a bunch of stephanotis Roland had given her. 'It is evident, too, that Mrs. Lindsay knows little of county society, and is one with whom county society is shy of associating. Well, well; when Roland and I are married, this grim matron shall be relegated from Earlshaugh to the Dower House at King's Wood. It is a pity we shall not be able to send her farther off.' Meanwhile the sportsmen were getting to work, and the guns began to bang in the coverts. Autumn was rapidly advancing now; every portion of the beautiful landscape told the eye so. The summer look was gone, and the sound of the leaves fluttering down was apt to make one thoughtful. Then even the sun seems older; he rises later, and goes to bed earlier. The singing birds had gone from the King's Wood and the Earl's Haugh to warmer climes. The swallows were preparing to leave, assembling at their own places on the banks of the burn, waiting till thousands mustered for their mysterious southern flight. Elsewhere, as Clare has it, might be seen--