in that same Castle of Dundargue--would have regarded such a repast and such a beverage as 'afternoon tea' with no small wonder, and, perhaps, disgust. Eveline Graham was very softly featured and slender in figure; but Olive Raymond, who was the taller of the two, was more fully developed, yet looked slim as a Greek goddess in a dress of deep blue that became her pure complexion and rich brown hair, with only a tiny bouquet of white flowers in the brooch at her bosom, and a multitude of silver bangles--emblems of conquest, perhaps--like silver fetters, on her slender and snowy wrists. She was fair and colourless, with dark grey violet eyes that looked black under their jetty fringes at night. Eveline was more dazzlingly fair, but more _petite_, with soft, hazel eyes, and bright, brown hair that was shot with gold. She had exquisite hands and feet, and though _petite_, as we say, and slender, she had a peculiar grace and dignity of manner that only required a brocade-dress, ruff, and long stomacher to make her like one of her stately 'forbears,' whose portraits by Jameson were in the room in which she sat--a modern portion of the grim old Castle of Dundargue, the aspect and construction of which edifice were very different from those of the additions that had been made to it in later times. And as the girls sit there, in the tempered light of the afternoon sun streaming through the French windows that open to a stately balustraded terrace, and sip their tea leisurely, their conversation will throw some light upon the past, and perhaps the future, of certain of our _dramatis personæ_. 'When Allan returns--'began Eveline. 'Oh, don't talk to me again of Allan!' interrupted Olive Raymond, with a petulant toss of her pretty head, 'or I will begin to tease you about Stratherroch.' 'How?' asked Eveline, colouring perceptibly. 'He loves you--and you know he does.' 'Yes,' said Eveline, as a soft smile stole over her mignonne face; 'I cannot doubt it, though no word from which I could infer it has ever escaped his lips; but poor Cameron has little more than his pay. His paternal acres are mortgaged to the full--even the shootings and fishings, believe, don't come to him. I heard papa express to mamma his surprise that Cameron could "pull through," as he phrased it; that he would have no ineligibles in future dangling about me, and that--as I have nothing--I must marry _money_! That was the word--oh, how selfish it sounds, and how hateful!' added the girl, while her rosy little nether lip quivered. 'Poor Evan!' she murmured, dreamily; and as she uttered his name her voice, which was soft even as Cordelia's, became like that of Annie Laurie, 'low and sweet.' 'Ineligibles!' said her cousin; 'and yet he invited here Mr. Holcroft, who is well-nigh penniless, and against whose attentions Aunt Aberfeldie specially warned me.' 'In the interests of Allan, of course.'