How Sir Piers was saved Falconer never learned, for just then he contrived to make his escape, as Mr. John Balderstone, with a bundle of legal-looking documents, was announced on important business, and arrested the attention of the narrator. Partly worried by the general's prosy interruption, and thus partly thwarted in his purpose, Cecil entered the library, unheard by its occupant; its floor was covered by rare tiger skins, sent home from India by the general, who had been a mighty hunter there, and had transmitted home enough of them to stock a bazaar, with their claws set in gold, as necklaces, ear-rings, and brooches to all the ladies of his acquaintance. After one brief glance at the stately room, with its curtained bay windows, its walls covered by glittering volumes in splendid oak cases, its marble busts, easy chairs, and reading tables littered with papers, periodicals, prints, and drawing materials, Falconer's eye rested upon Mary Montgomerie, and his heart, full of love though it was, sank as he gazed--gazed on her in all her rare beauty. She stood before the stately fireplace, looking intently into the bright flame, seeing castles in the embers perhaps, and a sense, momentarily akin to despair, stole over him; her graceful figure was so elegantly and richly attired in a costume so perfect in all its details and ornaments, from the tiny pearl comb that held up the close silky coils of her dark-brown hair, to the beautifully embroidered little slipper that rested on the fender--all indicated the gulf, that, though love might span it, too surely lay between them--a gulf formed by great wealth, by family and high position on her side, and by the utter lack of these three important elements on his own. He had followed her here, fraught with a proposal, and now he could but ask himself, Why had Fate brought him to Eaglescraig? She turned suddenly, and welcomed him by a smile, a book in one white hand, the other resting on the mantelpiece, and he was half relieved--so unstable was he of purpose--when Annabelle Erroll issued from the recess of a window, saying: 'Oh, Mr. Falconer, you are just come here when I wanted you--so particularly, too.' 'I am glad of that--in what can I serve you?' 'By writing your autograph in my "Birthday Book,"' she replied, producing one of the records with which young ladies are wont to bore their friends--a handsomely bound little volume--a bijou freak of the time, wherein a motto from a poet, or a text from Scripture, was appended to each day of the twelve months. 'What is your birthday?' 'The fifth of November.' 'Gunpowder-plot day!' she exclaimed, laughing, as her quick little hand selected the page. 'Here it is--November 5--St. Bertille's day; and the motto is, "Man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble."' 'Scriptural--but rather uncomfortable,' said Falconer, smiling, as he assumed a pen.