When the ceremony was concluded, and both the clergyman and the witnesses had been satisfied and dismissed, the lovers left the house, with the design of walking forwards into the city. In conformity to a previous arrangement, Lady Jean walked first, like a lady of quality, and Richard followed closely behind, with the dress and deportment of her servant. Her ladyship was dressed in her finest suit, and adorned with her finest jewels, all which she had brought from Cumbernauld on purpose, in a mail or leathern trunk—for such was the name then given to the convenience now entitled a portmanteau. Her step was light, and her bearing gay, as she moved along—not on account of the success which had attended her expedition, or her satisfaction in being now united to the man of her choice, but because she anticipated the highest pleasure in the sight of a place whereof she had heard such wonderful stories, and from a participation in whose delights she had been so long withheld. Like all persons educated in the country, she had been regaled in her infancy with magnificent descriptions of the capital—of its buildings, that seemed to mingle with the clouds—its shops, which apparently contained more wealth than all the world beside—of its paved streets (for paved streets were then wonders in Scotland)—and, above all, of the grand folks who thronged its Highgates, its Canongates, and its Cowgates—people whose lives seemed a perpetual holiday, whose attire was ever new, and who all lived in their several palaces. Though, of course, Edinburgh had then little to boast of, the country people who occasionally visited it did not regard it with less admiration than that with which the peasantry of our own day may be supposed to view it now that it is something so very different. It was then, as well as now, the capital of the country, and, as such, bore the same disproportion in point of magnificence to inferior towns, and to the country in general. In one respect, it was superior to what it is at the present day—namely, in being the seat of government and of a court. Lady Jean had often heard all its glorious peculiarities described by her sisters, who, moreover, sometimes took occasion to colour the picture too highly, in order to raise her envy, and make themselves appear great in their alliance and association with so much greatness. She was, therefore, prepared to see a scene of the utmost splendour—a scene in which nothing horrible or paltry mingled, but which was altogether calculated to awe or to delight the senses.