But see—see—what is the matter with Lord Wigton?” he added, pointing to an aged personage on horseback, who had just pushed forward, and seemed about to faint, and fall from his horse. The person alluded to, at sight of his daughter in this unexpected place, was in reality confounded, and it was some time before he mastered voice enough to ejaculate, “O, Jean, Jean! what’s this ye’ve been about? or what has brocht you to Edinburgh?” “And Lord have a care o’ us!” exclaimed at this juncture another venerable peer, who had just come up, “what has brocht my sonsie son, Ritchie Livingstone, to Edinburgh, when he should have been fechtin’ the Dutch by this time in Pennsylvania?” The two lovers, thus recognised by their respective parents, stood with downcast looks, and perfectly silent, while all was buzz and confusion in the brilliant circle around them; for the parties concerned were not more surprised at the aspect of their affairs, than were all the rest at the beauty of the far-famed but hitherto unseen Lady Jean Fleming. The Earl of Linlithgow, Richard’s father, was the first to speak aloud, after the general astonishment had for some time subsided; and this he did in a laconic though important query, which he couched in the simple words, “Are you married, bairns?” “Yes, dearest father,” said his son, gathering courage, and coming close up to his saddle-bow; “and I beseech you to extricate Lady Jean and me from this crowd, and I shall tell you all when we are alone.” “A pretty man ye are, truly,” said the old man, who never took any thing very seriously to heart, “to be staying at hame, and getting yourself married, all the time you should have been abroad, winning honour and wealth, as your gallant grand-uncle did wi’ Gustavus i’ the thretties! Hooever, since better mayna be, I maun try and console my Lord Wigton, who, I doot, has the worst o’ the bargain, ye ne’er-do-weel!” He then went up to Lady Jean’s father, shook him by the hand, and said, “that though they had been made relations against their wills, he hoped they would continue good friends. The young people,” he observed, “are no that ill matched; and it is not the first time that the Flemings and the Livingstones have melled together, as witness the blithe marriage of the Queen’s Marie to Lord Fleming, in the feifteen saxty-five. At any rate, my lord, let us put a good face on the matter, afore they glowering gentles and whipper-snapper duchesses. I’ll get horses for the two, and they’ll join the ridin’ down the street; and deil hae me if Lady Jean disna outshine them, the hale o’ them!” “My Lord Linlithgow,” responded the graver and more implacable Earl of Wigton, “it may set you to take this matter blithely; but, let me tell you, it’s a muckle mair serious affair for me. What think ye am I to do wi’ Kate and Grizzy noo?” “Hoot, toot, my lord,” said Linlithgow, with a sly smile, “their chance is as gude as ever it was, I assure you, and sae will every body think that kens them.