The fire was alight, and burning well; for Grizzie, foreseeing how it must be, and determined she would not have strangers in the kitchen all day, had lighted it early. Lady Joan walked straight to it, and dropped, with a little shiver, into a chair beside it. To Cosmo the sight of the blaze brought a strange delight, like the discovery of a new loveliness in an old friend. To Lady Joan the room looked old-fashioned dreariness itself, to Cosmo an ancient marvel, ever fresh. He left her, and ran to his own room, whence presently he returned with a pair of thick woollen stockings, knitted in green and red by the hands of his grandmother. These he carried to Lady Joan, where she sat on the low chair, and kneeling before her, began, without apology or explanation, to draw one of them over the dainty foot placed on the top of the other in front of the fire. She gave a little start, and half withdrew her foot; then looking down at the kneeling figure of service before her, recognized at once the utterly honest and self-forgetful earnestness of the boy, and submitted. Carefully he drew the stockings on, and she neither opposed nor assisted him. When he had done, he looked up in her face with an expression that seemed to say--“There now! can’t I do it properly?” but did not speak. She thanked him, rose, and went out, and Cosmo conducted her to the stable, where he heard the coachman, as she called him, not much better than a stable-boy, whistling. She gave him her father’s order. [Illustration: “COSMO CONDUCTED HER TO THE STABLE.”] The lad stared with open mouth, and pointed to one of the stalls. There stood an utterly wretched horse, swathed in a cloth, with his head hanging down, heedless of the food before him. It was clear no hope lay there. She turned and looked at Cosmo. “The better for us, my lady!” replied Cosmo to her look; “we shall have your beautiful eyes the longer! They were lost in the dark last night, because they are made out of it, but now we see them, we don’t want to part with them.” She looked at him and smiled, saying to herself the boy would be dangerous by and by, and together they went back to the kitchen, where since they left, not a word had been spoken. Grizzie was removing the breakfast things; Lord Mergwain was seated by the fire, staring into it; and the laird had got his Journal of George Fox, and was reading diligently: when nothing was to be done, the deeper mind of the laird grew immediately active. When Lady Joan entered, her father sat up straight in his chair: he expected opposition! “One of the horses, my lord, is quite unfit,” she said. “Then, by my soul! we’ll start with the other,” he replied, in a tone that sounded defiance to heaven or earth or whatever said him nay. “As your lordship pleases,” returned Joan.