10th be his day. It's ower true, ower true, ower true for him an' a'
his kin, poor man! Aih? What was he saying then?"

The men smiled at her incoherent earnestness, but the lady, with true
feminine condescension, informed her, in a loud voice, that Allan had
an engagement in Scotland on St. Lawrence's Eve. She then started up,
extended her shrivelled hands, that shook like the aspen, and panted
out: "Aih, aih? Lord preserve us! Whaten an engagement has he on St.
Lawrence's Eve? Bind him! bind him! Shackle him wi' bands of steel,
and of brass, and of iron! O may He whose blessed will was pleased
to leave him an orphan sae soon, preserve him from the fate which I
tremble to think on!"

She then tottered round the table, as with supernatural energy, and
seizing the Laird's right hand, she drew it close to her unstable
eyes, and then perceiving the emerald ring chased in blood, she threw
up her arms with a jerk, opened her skinny jaws with a fearful gape,
and uttering a shriek that made all the house yell, and every one
within it to tremble, she fell back lifeless and rigid on the floor.
The gentlemen both fled, out of sheer terror; but a woman never
deserts her friends in extremity. The lady called her maids about her,
had her old nurse conveyed to bed, where every means were used to
restore animation. But, alas, life was extinct! The vital spark
had fled forever, which filled all their hearts with grief,
disappointment, and horror, as some dreadful tale of mystery was now
sealed up from their knowledge which, in all likelihood, no other
could reveal. But to say the truth, the Laird did not seem greatly
disposed to probe it to the bottom.

Not all the arguments of Captain Bryan and his lady, nor the simple