"Your occasional scruples o' conscience--he, he! Do ye mind the whilly-whaw ye were in anent the spectre of an armed man in the hall of Clermiston?" "Why the devil remind me of it?" exclaimed the other, angrily; "if it really was a spirit----" "_If!_ we have in profane as weel as sacred writing owre mony evidences of their reality, and their appearance for various purposes whilk we cannot comprehend; and we have also as mony solid proofs that the devil can mak' deid bodies move; but anent this, see Gabrieile Nandæus in his _Apology_, and Delrio in his _Disquisitiones Magica_." "D--n Delrio! Ever pestering me with thy musty learning!--but here is a change-house, where it may be that we can get this notable postscriptum concocted." * * * * * The summer had passed away, and now brown autumn was once more reddening the heather of the Pentlands, and spreading her dun tints over the woods of Bruntisfield; the sombre eve was closing fast, but the bright fire burned merrily as ever in the chamber-of-dais at the old castellated Place, and ruddily its warm light shone through the barred windows into the recesses of the old woodlands, which every passing breeze robbed of some of their crisped foliage, and strewed it over the muirlands to the south. The old manor-house had recovered from the rages of that terrible night in 1688, and was now repaired, and stronger than ever; the windows were more thickly grated, and numerous loopholes and two additional turrets defended the barbican gate. Lilian and her friend Annie were seated side by side as of old, and opposite sat Lady Grisel--but a change had come over them all. Though the hale old lady recovered from the shock of Lilian's abduction, it had seriously affected her health, and now she was a picture of the helplessness of extreme old age, in her dotage, pale and querulous, but ever gentle and childlike. She occupied the same old fringed chair, with its bobs of parti-coloured silk, in which she had sat every evening for fifty years; her ivory wheel, though now unused, stood on one side of it, and her tall metal-headed cane on the other. Lilian was paler and thinner, and had lost much of her girlish beauty; she had many cares gnawing at her heart, but she was still as adorable and interesting as ever. Annie was, if possible, more so than formerly; the bloom of her beauty had expanded to the utmost; her cheek had a higher colour, and her eye a brighter sparkle; her tall and beautiful figure was more inclined to _embonpoint_. But alas for poor Finland, the fickle Laurie was now the wife of Craigdarroch, who had risen to the rank of Colonel of Horse in the new Scottish army of William III. Her dress was more matronly and magnificent than formerly, and her rich flower tabby suit, with its brocade stomacher and silver fringes, contrasted with Lilian's plain blue suit of Florence silk with its falls of point d'Espagne.