such things as other young men sent to their families, without considering whether they would be of any use. He also sent various beautiful things in that mosaic of ivory and silver, which used to adorn so many Scotch houses, and which made the manse parlour glorious for years to come. On the whole, “every justice” was done to Marion. Had she come from Mount Maitland itself, the greatest house in the neighbourhood, or even from the Castle at Pittenweem, or Balcarres, she could not have been better set out. It was at this great festivity that there were first introduced to the society at St. Rule’s two figures that were hereafter to be of great importance to it, and to assume an importance beyond what they had any right to, according to ordinary laws. These were Frank Mowbray and his mother, who had very lately come to St. Rule’s, from a country vaguely called the South, which was not, after all, any very distant or different region, but perhaps only Dumfrieshire, or Northumberland, in both of which they had connections, but which do not suggest any softness of climate or exuberance of sunshine to our minds nowadays. They had led, it was believed, a wandering life, which was a thing very obnoxious to the public sentiment of St. Rule’s, and almost infallibly meant minds and manners to correspond, light-headedness and levity, especially on the part of the woman, who could thus content herself without a settled home of her own. It was naturally upon Mrs. Mowbray that all the criticism centred; for Frank was still very young, and, of course, as a boy had only followed his mother’s impulse, and done what she determined was to be done. She was not in outward appearance at all unlike the _rôle_ which was given her by the public. She gave for one thing much more attention to her dress than was then considered right in St. Rule’s, or almost even decent, as if desirous of attracting attention, the other ladies said, which indeed was probably Mrs. Mowbray’s design. In the evening, she wore a scarf, gracefully draped about her elbows and doing everything but cover the “bare neck,” which it was intended to veil: and though old enough to wear a cap, which many ladies in those days assumed, however young they might be--as soon as they married, did not do so, but wore her hair in large bows on the top of her head, with stray ringlets upon either cheek, which, for a woman with a grown-up son, seemed almost an affront to public morality. And she used a fan with much action and significance, spreading it out, and shutting it up as it suited her conversation, with little gestures that were like nothing in the world but a foreigner, one of the French, or persons of that kind, that thought of nothing but showing themselves off. It was perhaps an uncharitable judgment, but there was so much truth in it, that Mrs. Mowbray’s object was certainly to make the most of herself, and do herself justice which is what she would have said.