While she sat in her easy-chair luxuriating in indolence and solitude before the glowing fire, the thought suddenly occurred to her that she was not really so badly off as the loss of her purse had first led her to suppose. She recollected that she had several costly rings upon her fingers; diamonds, rubies, and emeralds--the least valuable of which was worth more than the purse of money which had been stolen from her; and if she should be driven to extremity she could part with one of these rings; but then, on calm consideration of the subject, she had really no fears of being driven to extremity. She was Lady Vincent, and her credit was as yet intact before the world. This was a first-class hotel, and would supply her with all that she might require for the month that must intervene before her father's arrival. She would spend this interval in seeing Edinboro' and its environs, and when her father should come she would persuade him to take her to the Continent, and afterwards carry her back to her native country, and to her childhood's home, to pass the remainder of her life in peace and quietness. Dreaming over this humble prospect for the future, Claudia retired to bed, and slept well. The next morning, as soon as she had breakfasted, she ordered a carriage from the stables connected with the hotel and drove to Edinboro' Castle, where she spent two or three hours among its royal halls and bowers, dreaming over the monuments of the past. She lingered in the little cell-like stone chamber where Queen Mary had given birth to her son, afterwards James VI. She read the pathetic prayer carved on the stone tablet above the bedstead, and said to have been composed by the unhappy queen in behalf of her newborn infant. In the great hall of the castle she paused long before a beautiful portrait of Mary Stuart, that was brought from Paris, where it had been painted, and which represented the young queen in her earliest womanhood, when she was the Dauphiness of France. And Claudia thought that this portrait was the only one, among all that she had ever seen of Mary Stuart, which came up to her ideal of that royal beauty, who was even more a queen of hearts than of kingdoms. At length, weary of sight-seeing, she re-entered her carriage and returned home. While she was in her bedchamber taking off her bonnet, a card was brought to her. "This must be a mistake--this cannot be for me; I have no acquaintances in the town," she said, without taking the trouble to glance at the card. "I beg your ladyship's pardon, but the countess inquired particularly for Lady Vincent," replied the waiter who had brought the card. "The countess?" repeated Claudia, and she took it up and read the lightly penciled name: "Berenice, Countess of Hurstmonceux." "Say to Lady Hurstmonceux that I will be with her in a few minutes," said Claudia.