"Sae said your lady mother, that's dead and gane; yea, and your great-aunt Grisel too (but silk and damask are grand braws, hinny!): and, waes me! thae wrinkled auld hands hae braided the bonnie hair o' baith. And now the head o' ane is turned frae the hue o' the raven's wing to that o' the new-fa'n snaw; and the head o' the other, oh, waly! waly! lies low in the kirk vaults o' St. Rocque. I mind a time when the hair o' my lady there was as glossy as yours; yea, and her brow as smooth, and her cheek glowing like the red rowan berry. It is many a lang and weary year ago, and yet it seemeth but as yesterday, when your kinsman, umquhile Sir Archibald, first cam riding up the dykeside to Cowdenknowes, wi' my puir gudeman, John Elshender, astride his cloak-bags on a high trotting mear; and weel I mind the time when first he drew his chair in by the ingle, and lookit awfu' things at Lady Grisel. Certes, but she was ill to please at her toilet after that! Frae morning till e'enin' there was nought but busking wi' braws, frizzling and puffing and perfuming; tying and untying, and flaunting wi' breast-knots and fardingales, and working wi' essence o' daffodils and gilliflower water. That was mony a year before that vile limmer Cromwell led his ill-faured host on this side o' the English bounds. He was a braw and a buirdly man Sir Archibald, though when last he rode forth frae the aikwoods o' the auld Place owre the muir, his pow was lyart enough. Methink I see him yet, as I saw him first, our brave auld laird! His green doublet o' taffeta, stiff wi' buckram, bombast, and gowden lace--his lang buff boots and clanking spurs--his broadsword and dudgeon-knife--and a bonnie ger-falcon on his nether wrist, wi' a plume on its head and siller varvels on its legs. Mony a sair gloom he gaed that braw chield, the Laird o' Caickmuir; but Lady Grisel could never thole the Muirs, for they gained baith haugh and holm by pinglin' wi' base merchandise in Nungate o' Haddintoun, when the Humes were winning the broomy knowes o' Cowden by the sharp spur and the long spear----" "In fearfu' times, Elsie," said Lilian laughing. "Ay, indeed, hinny," continued the garrulous old woman. "Fearfu' times they were, when the Lord o' Crichton, wi' his fierce knights in their bright armour, on barbed horses, ravaged a' the West-kirk parochin to the castle-gate of Corstorphin, ruining lord, laird, and tenant body alike,--giving the cottar's home, the baron's tower, and the priest's kirk to torch and sack. Fearfu' times they ever are, hinny, when Scottish braves and Scottish blades are bent on ilk ither in the fell stoure o' battle." "Elshender," said Lady Grisel--(interrupting these reminiscences, of which the reader is perhaps as tired as Lilian was)--"you have left the band on your wheel."