"A thousand moustaches!" stammered the officer; "my fair Annie, I had almost--" "Forgotten me! you dare not say so; but O my poor boy Fenton, how sorry I am I see thee there." "I thank you, Mistress Laurie, but the honour of this visit would gild the darkest prison in Scotland--even the whig-vault of Dunoter," said Walter, kissing the hand of the speaker, whom he knew to be the betrothed of his friend, a gay and lively girl of twenty, whose beauty was then the theme of a hundred songs, of which, unhappily, but one has survived to us--the effusion of Finland's love and poesy. Long had they loved each other; but the father of Annie, the old Whig Baronet of Maxwelton, had engendered a furious hostility to Douglas, in consequence of his soldiers having lived at free quarters on his estates in Dumfriesshire, where they made very free, indeed, burned down a few farms, shot and houghed the cattle, and extorted a month's marching money thrice over, with cocked matches and drawn rapiers. "This visit is as unexpected as it is welcome," continued Walter; "and, for the honour it does me, I would not exchange--" "Thy prison for a palace," interrupted Annie. "Now, Mr. Walter, I know to an atom the value of this compliment, which means exactly nothing. But we must not jest; I have to introduce a dear friend--one who has come to thank you personally for those favours of which you are now paying the price. Come, Lilian, love," continued the lively young lady, "approach and speak. My life on't! how the lassie trembles! Come, Finland, we understand this, and will keep guard while little Lilian speaks with her captive paladin." "You are a mad wag, Annie," said the cavalier, as he gave her his ungloved hand; "but lower your voice, dear one, or, soft and sweet as it is, it may bring down the gudeman and all his rascals about us in a trice." "How can I find words to thank you, Mr. Fenton?" said the tremulous voice of Lilian Napier, whose small but beautiful face appeared without the massive grating, peeping through a plaid of dark green tartan, a mode of disguise then very common in Scotland, and which continued to be so in the earlier part of the last century. Like a hooded mantilla, it floated over her graceful shoulders, and a silver brooch confined it beneath her dimpled chin. "Lilian Napier here!" exclaimed Fenton with rapture; "ah, fool that I was to repine, while my miseries were remembered by thee!" "Ah, sir, the Lady Bruntisfield has lamented them bitterly. Never can we repay you for the unmerited severity and humiliations to which you have been subjected in our cause. Oh, can I forget that but for you, Mr. Fenton, we might have become the occupants of that frightful place, the air of which chills me even here!" "Thee--O no, Lilian Napier, they could not have the heart to immure thee here!" "The lack of heart rather, Walter."