“Come, come, Anna, I will not have another word said against Alick, since it grieves our darling here. But I would like to know what keeps him hanging about here so long. He has been here now nearly two years.” “Uncle,” said Drusilla, who now thought that she might as well tell all her news at once—news which indeed she had intended to tell, when the subject of Alick’s presence was first introduced, but which was then arrested on her lips by the indignant animadversions of General Lyon—“Uncle do you remember reading last winter in the London Times of a young American gentleman who claimed, through his mother, the Barony of Killcrichtoun?” “I—think I do remember some such asinine proceeding on the part of a young countryman of ours.” “He was your nephew, uncle, and he has made good the claim. He is now Lord Killcrichtoun. That is the reason why he stays in England, I suppose.” “Whe—ew!” whistled the old gentleman, slowly, adding _sotto voce_, so as not to be heard by Drusilla: “I knew he was a scamp; but never suspected him of being an ass.” But Dick had handed Drusilla, Lenny and Anna into the carriage, and was waiting to perform the same service for his uncle, who now entered and took his seat. The drive from Charing Cross to the Tower was comparatively short, but very interesting, taking our travelers through the most ancient and historical portions of Old London. Drawing near the grim, old fortress of the kings of England, they saw rising above the thickly-crowded buildings of the city and the turbid waters of the Thames, the central keep, or citadel, known as the White Tower, and surrounded by its double line of fortified walls and by its dry moat. Our party alighted from their carriage at the great gate, flanked by embattled turrets at the south-western angle of the walls. Having paid their sixpence each as entrance fee, they passed over the stone bridge across the moat and found themselves within the outer ward, between the two lines of wall. Here, overpowered by the spirit of the past, they looked around them, feeling something of the awe that children feel in a churchyard in the dusk of evening. The spirit of the past was indeed before them—and not only in the hoary walls of the middle ages, but in the living creatures of the day; for the warders of the Tower, the Extraordinary Yeomen of the Royal Guard, commonly called the “Beef Eaters,” were dressed in the costume of the time of Henry the Eighth. One of these stepped up to General Lyon, and saluting respectfully, tendered his service as guide. “And there are the buildings and there the costumes, this the ground and that the sky that met the eyes of beautiful Anne Boleyn as she first came to this place a bride and a queen, and last as a victim and a convict,” murmured Drusilla, dreamily and half unconsciously.