STANDARD NOVELS. No CXVII. "No kind of literature is so generally attractive as Fiction. Pictures of life and manners, and Stories of adventure, are more eagerly received by the many than graver productions, however important these latter may be. Apuleius is better remembered by his fable of Cupid and Psyche than by his abstruser Platonic writings; and the Decameron of Boccaccio has outlived the Latin Treatises and other learned works of that author." TALES OF THE PEERAGE AND THE PEASANTRY. COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET; AND BELL & BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH. 1849. LONDON: Spottiswoodes and Shaw, New-street-Square. [Illustration: _Clara Cause, del._ _C. Cook, sc._ TALES OF THE PEERAGE AND THE PEASANTRY. "_The Chevalier received the Countess of Nithsdale with what he meant to be marked attention, but his manner was subdued, his bearing dejected_" Winifred _London. Published by Richard Bentley. 1849._] TALES OF THE PEERAGE AND THE PEASANTRY. EDITED BY LADY DACRE. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET; AND BELL & BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH. 1849. NOTICE. The Proprietors of Circulating Libraries in all parts of the country are compelled by the new Copyright Act to discontinue purchasing and lending out a single copy of a foreign edition of an English work. _The mere having it in their possession ticketed and marked as a library book_ exposes them to A PENALTY OF TEN POUNDS. * * * * * By the new Copyright Act and the new Customs Act, even single copies of pirated editions of English Works are prohibited both in Great Britain and the Colonies. Copies so attempted to be passed are seized. These measures will be rigidly enforced. PREFACE. The authoress feels much diffidence in sending forth to the world a tale which by its title gives promise of treating not only of history, but of Scottish history; an act of presumption from which she is anxious to clear herself;--and at the same time she wishes to re-assure those readers who may not like historical novels from a woman's pen, that she has entered no farther into public affairs, than as they may have influenced the fortunes and feelings of the one admirable woman who forms the subject of the following memoir. Since in the human heart the same passions and the same emotions are found in all ages, she hopes she has not trespassed beyond the limits assigned to one who is conscious that all she writes bears the stamp of feminine authorship, in attempting the development of a female character, the firmness and tenderness of which may be gathered from Lady Nithsdale's own beautiful letter to her sister.