feet well apart, and the most wondering curiosity in its entire pose, made the forlorn little mistress of the place smile as she went through those gates which led to her home. After this there was a long avenue to drive through, with great trees overshadowing the carriage, and tossing their branches about in the night wind. It had been a very hot day, and the breeze which had sprung up was very grateful, but the moaning it made in the branches was very melancholy, and affected poor Margaret’s imagination. “How the wind _soughs_,” she said, with full use of the dreary guttural. She was sitting in the front seat of the cab as it jolted along amidst all those waving shadows, and Margaret felt very sad, she did not know why. She had been curious about her sister’s house, and interested, and had liked the novelty and perpetual change; but she did not feel any curiosity, nothing but sadness, in coming to this place, which was her own, though there was nobody here to welcome her. How the wind soughed! no other word could express so well the wild moan and wailing, which is an exaggeration by nature of the sound which the French call tears in the voice. It went to Margaret’s heart: the tears came into her voice, too, and filled her eyes in the darkness. All was melancholy in this home-coming to nothing but darkness and the unknown--the wind tossing about the branches and complaining to the night, the sound of water somewhere, complaining too, with a feeble tinkle--the sky invisible, except in a speck here and there, just light enough to show how the branches were tossing overhead. The young traveller drooped her head in her corner, and felt her courage and her heart fail. “Margaret,” said Jean’s voice out of the darkness, from the other side of the carriage, “you must learn to remember now that you are not a Scotch country girl in Fife, but an English young lady with a character to keep up--a landed proprietor. Don’t talk that vulgar Scotch. If you use such language here nobody will understand you; and they will think you a girl without any education, which would be most painful for all your relatives, and a slur upon poor papa’s memory. Therefore remember, no Scotch.”