"See you that old corbie on the branch of the dale tree, that horrid branch, all notched by the ropes of old executions?" "He with the bald head now watching us?" "The same: what think you Aunt Grizel says? He saw my great grandsire and his train in all their harness, ride down the avenue when they marched with brave King James to Flodden." "By that reckoning he must be--let me see--one hundred and seventy-five years old." "O, there are some older than that hereabouts; but come to the dovecot, and there we shall see birds of brighter plumes and better augury than these gloomy corbies." As they approached the dovecot, a round edifice vaulted and domed with stone in the most ancient Scottish fashion, a tame pigeon winged its way from amid the scores that clustered on the roof, and after fluttering for a time over Lilian's head, alighted on her shoulder and nestled in her neck, rubbing its smooth and glossy head against her soft cheek, and even permitting Walter to stroke its shining pinions, which in the sunlight varied alternately from green to purple, and from purple to red and gold. On each leg it had a silver varvel with Lilian's cypher on it. As Walter caressed the beautiful bird, his hand often touched the soft cheek and softer tresses of the happy and thoughtless girl. "How properly this gentle emblem of innocence and happiness greets you as its mistress." "And am I not its proper mistress?" asked Lilian artlessly. "It is the bird of peace, too." "And love--so that it well becomes the hand of beauty." "Ah! you are beginning to be waggish now. It is just so that your friend Douglas of Finland--he with the flaunting feathers--addresses my gay gossip, Annie Laurie. You know Annie? She is considered the first beauty in the Lothians, and 'tis said (but that is a great secret, and you must not say I said so) that the young lairds of Craigdarroch and Finland are going to fight a solemn duel about her. She is much taller than me." "Then she is too tall for my taste." "Oh! but I am quite little; you used to call me little Madam Lily once. But her hair is the most beautiful brown." "I prefer," said Walter, taking up one of Lilian's heavy tresses, "I prefer the colour that approaches to gold." "And her eyes are just like mine." "They must be beautiful indeed." "Ha, ha!" laughed the merry girl: "harkee, Mr. Fenton, did I not know positively to the contrary, I would think you had been in France." "Wherefore, Madam?"