There is one saint in the calendar, who at least has never lacked worshippers; at whose shrine the strictest sectarians, the bitterest Reformers, have never failed to lay their votive offerings, and in whose train shine myriads of the brightest and fairest beings we can picture to ourselves, the only angels that gladden the sight of us adoring mortals here below. Yes, blooming maidens, buxom widows, constituting a phalanx beautiful to look upon, as it is dangerous to deal with, have for centuries conspired to do honour to sweet St Valentine, and we can only regret that the anniversary of his martyrdom (kissed to death, we have always been taught to believe, and buried by turtle-doves, under a shower of orange-blossoms) should occur at a season of the year when in our own climate the usual concomitants of frost and snow seem so inappropriate to the indolent and relaxing amusement of love-making. We have no reason to believe that the 14th of February 1564, afforded any contrast to the usual boisterous inclemency of a Scottish spring, or that Queen Mary and her maidens, looking from the battlements of Wemyss Castle on the leaden waves of the stormy Firth, had any sunshine to gladden them save that which originated in their own breasts. But the Queen at least was in the height of good-humour and good spirits; though subject to occasional fits of depression, Mary’s usual state of mind was kindly and cheerful; nay, when in some rare interval of peace she was relieved from the pressure of actual distress, or the anticipation of impending calamity, her gay and cordial manner shed an influence of happiness over all who came within its range; and even Randolph--busy, intriguing, heartless, cynical Randolph--could not but admit that ‘this Queen,’ as he calls her, ‘is a divine thing, far excelling any (our own most worthy only excepted) that ever was made since the first framing of mankind.’ Behold, then, Mary Stuart, and her maidens sitting at work in a chamber overlooking the stormy Firth from the seaward turret of Wemyss Castle. Without, the leaden hues of sea and sky form a grand though savage contrast to the white snow-mantle which wraps the undulating shores of Fife, while the opposite Lothian coast stands out, as it were, into the water with the distinct outline and startling appearance of proximity peculiar to an atmosphere charged with coming snow, and a wind from the north-east.