Jeanie had got in before her young mistress, before the clouds had risen that threatened to cover the sky. What different thoughts were hers on the same subject! She listened to Margaret’s voice talking to Bell, as she moved about putting everything in order for the night. What a sweet voice it was, Jeanie thought, speaking so softly, such bonnie English! no like us common folk. The tones which were so wofully Fifeish to Sir Ludovic, and which made Mrs. Bellingham cry, seemed the very acme of refinement to Jeanie; and when a lady spoke to him so sweetly, looked at him with such lovely een, would it be wonderful if Rob forgot? And he was a gentleman himself, for what was it that made a gentleman but just education? and nobody could say but he had that. It gave Jeanie’s heart a pang, but she was too just and candid not to see all this. How could he think of Jeanie Robertson with Miss Margaret for a friend? Jeanie went away into the depths of those low vaulted rooms, which formed the under-story of Earl’s-hall in order to escape the sweet sound of Margaret’s voice. Here there was a maze of rooms and cellars one within another, among which you might escape very easily from sounds without. You might escape, even, which was more difficult, from pursuers, even from persecutors, as had been known, it was said, in the old times; but, ah me, in the very deepest of recesses, how could poor Jeanie escape from herself? Next day, next morning, Margaret looked at the sky long before any one was up at Earl’s-hall. She looked out over the tree-tops to the sea, which swept round in a semicircle as far as the eye carried. From the Eden to the Tay the silvery line swept the horizon one dazzling curve of light. St. Andrews lay on her right hand, with all its towers and its ruins, and the glimmer of water beyond the headland on which it stood. Not a trace of smoke or human breath came from the brown old city, which stood there silent, with a homely majesty, in the profound stillness of the early morning. Not a human creature was awake between Margaret’s window and the old town of St. Rule, except, indeed, in the fishing-boat, with its brown sail, out upon the dazzling line of sea, which was bearing slowly toward the bar after a night’s fishing, with scarce wind enough to move it. The birds were all up and awake, but nothing else--not the ploughmen and laborers, so early was it, the sun still low over the sea. The girl’s heart leaped at the beauty of the sight, but sank again so far as her own interests were concerned. Is it not a bad sign when it is so bright so early? And the light which thus lavished itself upon the world with none to see it, had a certain pale gleam which frightened the young observer, too much used to atmospheric effects not to know something about them. “Oh, what a lovely morning!” she said to herself; but even sanguine Margaret shook her head, thinking it doubtful if the day would be as fine. And oh, if