"Recollection!" echoed the young man, in the liveliness of his emotion flinging the white cloth upon the floor. "Good heavens! what can have put such a notion into your head? I have written letter upon letter, both to you and your guardian--that is, after I found out where you had gone to. My letters to you have not been answered; my letter to him was answered by a refusal." "Harry, Harry, he never consulted me--I never"----but here she checked herself, as perhaps she considered that the vehemence of her denial might be construed into something very like an anxiety to retract it; and whether this was the construction put on it or not, all we have to say is, that on Miss Alice Smith slipping quietly into the room, with a volume of the _Scottish Chiefs_ in her hand, she almost screamed, as she saw a stranger seated on the sofa beside her niece, and holding her very earnestly by the hand. "How! what's all this?" exclaimed Miss Alice. "Them Scotch is the oddest people!" "Young lady nearly fainted, ma'am, at some accounts I was giving her of the Highlands, ma'am. I'm waiter here, ma'am; and it's part of my business, ma'am, to give all sorts of information to the English families as they pass through the city, ma'am." "And what were you a-telling of to this young lady?" "Only a few incidents that occasionally happen in such wild scenes as Fash-na-Cairn or Ben-na-Groich. They say the new Ben-na-Groich is an English nobleman, with a very handsome sister;--I was merely telling this young lady here what would probably be the fate of the beautiful English-woman." "Gracious me!" exclaimed Miss Alice: "no wonder she fainted, poor thing. What was it? for mercy's sake--what will they do to her?" "Fash-na-Cairn and all his clan have been at war for hundreds of years with Ben-na-Groich. He will probably lead a foray upon the new chief and carry off his sister." "Gracious! how old is this Fash-na-Cairn?" "About five-and-twenty. He has buried his fifteenth wife. They seldom live more than three months." "Oh, Jane! Jane! we're lost--ruined--murdered! Waiter, _I'm_ the sister of Ben-na-Groich, the victim of Fash-na-Cairn!" "Sorry, ma'am, I've alarmed you; but, perhaps, the friends of the clan may gather round Ben-na-Groich, and succeed in capturing Fash-na-Cairn." "And what then?" inquired Miss Alice, with a glimpse of hope. "Oh, then, it is the universal custom for the next in blood of the chieftain, if she be unmarried, to cut off a finger of the prisoner every day with an old hereditary hatchet kept for that purpose, till he relents, and offers to make her his bride. If he does so before he has lost the fingers of both hands, the feud is at an end." Miss Alice shuddered at the thoughts of cutting off a young man's fingers. "Oh, waiter, this is dreadful news! I'm certain my poor brother knew nothing of this when he purchased that horrible property. And what will they do to _him_ if the furry succeeds?"