In these long, lazy tacks, sweeping slowly by the quaint old town in silence, broken only by the ripple of the water along the planks, and the sweet and distant swell of the organ across the water, the time flew by. The sun went down in red and golden vapours, and the curfew from the ivied tower of Golden Friars sounded over the darkened lake--the organ was heard no more--and the boat was making her slow way back again to Dorracleugh. Sir Harry looked at me very kindly, in silence, for awhile. He arranged a rug about my feet, and looked again in my face. "Sometimes you look so like bonny Mabel--and when you smile--ye mind her smile? 'Twas very pretty." Then came a silence. "I must tell Renwick, when the shooting begins, to send down a brace of birds every day to the vicar," said Sir Harry. "I'll be away myself in a day or two, and I shan't be back again for three weeks. I'll take a house in London, lass--I won't have ye moping here too long--you'd begin to pine for something to look at, and folks to talk to, and sights to see." I was alarmed, and instantly protested that I could not imagine any life more delightful than this at Golden Friars. "No, no; it won't do--you're a good lass to say so--but it's not the fact--oh, no--it isn't natural--I can't take you to balls, and all that, for I don't know the people that give them--and all my great lady friends that I knew when I was a younker, are off the hooks by this time--but there's plenty of sights to see besides--there's the waxworks, and the wild beasts, and the players, and the pictures, and all the shows." "But I assure you, I like Golden Friars, and my quiet life at Dorracleugh, a thousand times better than all the sights and wonders in the world," I protested. If he had but known half the terror with which I contemplated the possibility of my removal from my then place of abode, he would have given me credit for sincerity in my objections to our proposed migration to the capital. "No, I say, it won't do; you women can't bring yourselves ever to say right out to us men what you think; you mean well--you're a good little thing--you don't want to put the auld man out of his way--but you'd like Lunnon best, and Lunnon ye shall have. You shall have a house you can see your auld acquaintance in, such, I mean, as showed themselves good-natured when all went wrong wi' ye. You shall show them ye can haud your head as high as ever, and are not a jot down in the world. Never mind, I have said it." In vain I protested; Sir Harry continued firm. One comfort was that he would not return to put his threat into execution for, at least, three weeks. If anything was wanting to complete my misery, it was Sir Harry's saying after a little silence: "And see, lass; don't you tell a word of it to Richard Marston; 'twould only make him fancy I'm going to take him; and I'd as lief take the devil--so mind ye, it's a secret."