Cosmo was busy clearing the snow from the horses’ hoofs. The driver, stupid or dazed, sat on the box, helpless as a parrot on a swinging perch. “You’ll never win to Howglen to-night, mem,” said Aggie. “We must put up where we can, then,” answered the lady. “I dinna know of a place nearer, fit for gentlefowk, mem.” “What are we to do then?” asked the lady, with subdued, but evident anxiety. “What’s the guid o’ haein’ a father like that--sleepin’ and snorin’ whan maist ye’re in want o’ ’im!” thought Aggie to herself; but what she replied was, “Bide, mem, till we hear what Cosmo has to say til ’t.” “That is a peculiar name!” remarked the lady, brightening at the sound of it, for it could, she thought, hardly belong to a peasant. “It’s the name the lairds o’ Glenwarlock hae borne for generations,” answered Aggie; “though doobtless it’s no a name, as the maister wad say, indigenous to the country. Ane o’ them broucht it frae Italy, the place whaur the Pop’ o’ Rom’ bides.” “And who is this Cosmo whose advice you would have me ask?” “He’s the yoong laird himsel’, mem:--eh! but ye maun be a stranger no to ken the name o’ Warlock.” “Indeed I am a stranger--and I can’t help wishing, if there is much more of this weather between us and England, that I had been more of a stranger still.” “’Deed, mem, we hae a heap o’ weather up here as like this as ae snow-flake is til anither. But we tak what’s sent, an’ makna mony remarks. Though to be sure the thing’s different whan it’s o’ a body’s ain seekin’.” This speech--my reader may naturally think it not over-polite--was happily not over-intelligible to the lady. Aggie, a little wounded by the reflection on the weather of her country, had in her emotion aggravated her Scottish tone. “And where is this Cosmo? How are we to find him?” “He’ll come onsoucht, mem. It’s only ’at he’s busy cleanin’ oot yer puir horse’ hivs ’at he disna p’y his respec’s to ye. But he’ll be blythe eneuch!” “I thought you said he was a lord!” remarked the lady. “Na, I saidna that, mem. He’s nae lord. But he’s a laird, an’ some lairds is better nor ’maist ony lords--an’ _he’s_ Warlock o’ Glenwarlock--at least he wull be--an’ may it be lang or come the day.” Hard as the snow was packed in them, all the eight hoofs were now cleared out with Cosmo’s busy knife, which he had had to use carefully lest he should hurt the frog. The next moment his head appeared, a little behind that of Aggie, and in the light of the lamp the lady saw the handsome face of a lad seemingly about sixteen. “Here he is, mem! This is the yoong laird. Ye speir at _him_ what ye’re to du, and du jist as he tells ye,” said Aggie, and drew back, that Cosmo might take her place. “Is that girl your sister?” asked the lady, with not a little abruptness, for the _best bred_ are not always the most polite. “No, my lady,” answered Cosmo, who had learned from the lad on the box her name and rank; “she is the daughter of one of my father’s tenants.”