“You will have your devoted nephew, Aunt Jean. My aunts are the aim and object of my life. I never think of anything else, sleeping or waking. How can you talk of being left alone so long as you have _me_?” “I prefer Duncan Macgregor,” said Aunt Jean; “and as for your aunts, as you call them, you have only one. And I don’t want to see you pushed out of your place by that lad, Randal Burnside,” she added, in a whisper. “Just you keep your eyes upon him, Aubrey. I can’t think what business he has here.” Mrs. Bellingham’s prophecy was so far fulfilled that the young men and the girls did somehow, as is their use and wont, manage to separate themselves from their elder companions, one of whom, at least, had every desire to further this separation. It was Randal who was the cicerone of the party, and who led them through the winding path to that secluded, sheltered palace of peace where the dead Campbells rest. They were not thinking much about the Campbells. Who, indeed, thinks of the silent occupants, be they Pharaohs, be they Highland caterans, of those still dwellings of the dead? The Campbells lie in lordly guardianship of their loch and their trees, with their clan within call, and their castle scarcely out of hearing, and all kinds of Highland bravery--honeysuckles and wild roses in the summer, barberries and rowans in the autumn, flaunting upon the half-ruined wall that surrounds their tomb. The young people strayed that way--two of them full of talk and laughter, two of them quiet enough. Why it was that Effie and Aubrey fell together it would be difficult (yet not very difficult) to say; but the reason why Margaret stayed her steps for those of Randal was easy enough. She wanted, constantly wanted, to ask him why he took no notice _that_ night. For this reason she lingered while the others went on, looking at him now and then with a shy, eager look, which at once puzzled the young man, and filled his heart with a dangerous interest. She wanted to ask him something--what was it she wanted to ask him? Randal was on his guard, he felt. He had been warned effectually enough. Margaret was not for him. Even if he had wanted her (which he did not, he said to himself with a little indignation), was not he forestalled? Had not her heart been caught in its first flight? He might be sorry, but that did not matter much: the deed was done. And he was fully warned, completely forestalled, even if he had wished for anything else. But what was it she wanted to say? Probably, in the innocence of her heart, something about _that_ fellow, for whom, poor thing, she must fancy--she who knew nobody, because she loved him--that every one cared.