And Effie, whose mourning was less deep, and her mind less affected by “the family loss” than Margaret, had gone to visit Mrs. Burnside. Even little Loodie was being put to bed. Margaret, for the first time since her father’s death, was alone. She had found that day, among a collection of papers into which it had been shuffled heedlessly amidst the confusion of the moment, the drawing of her father which Rob Glen had begun on his first appearance at Earl’s-hall; and this had plunged her back into all that fresh agitation of loss and loneliness which is, in its way, a kind of pleasure to the mind, instead of the dull stupor of habitual grief which follows upon the immediate passion of an event. She had wept till her eyes and her strength were exhausted, but her heart relieved a little; and then that heart yearned momentarily for some one to comfort her. Where was _he_? She had not thought of him in this aspect before--perhaps looking for her, perhaps waiting for her, he who had been so “kind.” She put on her hat with the heavy gauze veil which Jean had thought necessary. She was all hung and garlanded with crape, the hat itself wrapped in a cloud of it, her dress covered with it, so that Margaret’s very movements were hampered. The grass always damp, more or less, the mossy underground beneath the firs, the moist brown earth of the potato-ground, were all alike unsuitable for this heavy and elaborate robe of mourning. Margaret gathered it about her and put on her hat, with its thick black gauze veil--she did not know herself in all this panoply of woe--and went out. There was nobody about. John was showing the new Baronet his pigsty, and Bell, more comforted and cheerful than she had yet felt, stood in the door of the byre and talked to Lady Leslie about her favorite, her bonnie brown cow. The old people were amused and pleased; they were more near “getting over it” than they had felt yet; and even John began to feel that it might be possible, after a while, to say Sir Ludovic again.