‘Did not I tell you,’ said Mrs. Eadie, turning to Mrs. Charles, ‘that there would be a death before the good to come by Glengael, to you or yours, would be gathered? Mrs. Walkinshaw of Kittlestonheugh is doomed to die soon; when this event comes to pass, let us watch the issues and births of Time.’ ‘You grow more and more mystical every day,’ said her husband pensively. ‘I am sorry to observe how much you indulge yourself in superstitious anticipations; you ought to struggle against them.’ ‘I cannot,’ replied the majestic Leddy, with solemnity--‘The mortal dwelling of my spirit is shattered, and lights and glimpses of hereafter are breaking in upon me. It has been ever so with all my mother’s race. The gift is an ancient inheritance of our blood; but it comes not to us till earthly things begin to lose their hold on our affections. The sense of it is to me an assurance that the bark of life has borne me to the river’s mouth. I shall now soon pass that headland, beyond which lies the open sea:--from the islands therein no one ever returns.’ Mr. Eadie sighed; and all present regarded her with compassion, for her benign countenance was strangely pale; her brilliant eyes shone with a supernatural lustre; and there was a wild and incommunicable air in her look, mysteriously in unison with the oracular enthusiasm of her melancholy. At this juncture a letter was handed in. It was the answer from Glengael to Mrs. Eadie’s application respecting Walkinshaw; and it had the effect of changing the painful tenor of the conversation. The contents were in the highest degree satisfactory. Mr. Frazer not only promised his influence, declaring that he considered himself as the agent of the family interests, but said, that he had no doubt of procuring at once the cadetcy, stating, at the same time, that the progress and complexion of the French Revolution rendered it probable that Government would find it expedient to augment the army; in which case, a commission for young Walkinshaw would be readily obtained; and he concluded with expressions of his sorrow at hearing his kinswoman had of late been so unwell, urging her to visit him at Glengael Castle, to which the family was on the point of removing for the summer, and where her native air might, perhaps, essentially contribute to her recovery. ‘Yes,’ said she, after having read the letter aloud, and congratulated Walkinshaw on the prospect which had opened.--‘Yes; I will visit Glengael. The spirits of my fathers hover in the silence of those mountains, and dwell in the loneliness of the heath. A voice within has long told me, that my home is there, and I have been an exile since I left it.’ ‘My dear Gertrude,’ said Mr. Eadie,--‘you distress me exceedingly this morning. To hear you say so pains me to the heart. It seems to imply that you have not been happy with me.’