Lizzie and Beatie were both fair-haired and happy little girls, who inherited from their mother the blue eyes and dazzling complexions of the Lindesays of Crawford. The three elder ladies occupied tabourettes; their two younger sisters alternately romped round the bartizan with a wiry otter terrier, or nestled among the embroidered skirts of Euphemia and Sybilla. The rich attire of these five girls, the abundance of satin, velvet, jewels, and embroidery which they had about them, betokened wealth; while by their air, the carriage of their heads, the chastened expression of their eyes, and above all by the beautiful form and whiteness of their hands, any one might easily perceive their birth was noble; yet their father (although the heir of a long line of chieftains) was the first of his race who had worn a coronet. "Oh, look at the caravels!" exclaimed little Lizzie to her sisters, who had been doing little else for the last hour; "look, sister Margaret," she continued, clapping her pretty hands, "see how one gay flag runs up after another! Dost thou see Captain Barton yet, sister Euphemia?--or thou, Sir David Falconer, Sybilla?" "How should we, if thou dost not?" asked Euphemia, with some asperity. "Because you are older and bigger than me, and should of course see farther." "Hush, child," replied Lady Euphemia, who had frequently found little Lizzie's powers of observation somewhat provoking; "but I _do_ think," she added, turning to Sybilla, "that I can distinguish Falconer and Barton on the poop." "At this distance!" said she, shading her fine hazel eyes by a small white hand. "Dost see a white feather waving there?" "Euphemia, Falconer always wears a red feather in his casquetel," replied Lady Sybilla. "We shall have good Father Zuill, the chaplain, visiting us ere long," said little Sybilla, "to read us some of his wonderful stories out of that great book, in which he writes down the miracles of St. Clement, the mariner's patron." Be it known, that though these charming girls could write, not one of them ever read a book in her life; for the simple reason, that there was not then a printed book in all the realm of Scotland, where the noble art of printing was unknown till twenty-two years later--being fourteen years after it was known in England. Here little Lizzie, after terrifying her sisters by a large wasp, which she thrust before them on her fan of feathers, threw it over the bartizan. "'Tis the first wasp I have seen this year," said Euphemia; "thou shouldst have killed it, child, for that would have freed us from foes till the end of December." "Father Zuill told us not to believe in that superstition," said Margaret, gently. "Yet he believes in beads that cure blindness," said Sybilla. "And burning-glasses that will consume a fleet at the horizon and further," added Euphemia; "but lo you, now, the ships are about to anchor!"