she had sat, and conversed, and passed her hours of peaceful privacy. My
fancy pictured that privacy rudely and brutally invaded by Darnley and his
ruffian associates, when bent on the murder of the ill-fated Rizzio. I
mentally compared the circumstances of that deed of blood, as related by
historians, with the facilities for committing it, afforded by the
distribution of apartments. They tallied exactly. There was the little room
in which sat the queen with her ladies and the devoted secretary. Close to
the door appeared the dark, narrow, turret staircase, which Darnley
ascended before he rushed into Mary's presence. The struggle must have been
desperate, for the murder was not effected in that chamber, Rizzio being
either dragged, or escaped into an adjoining and very obscure anteroom in
which the crime was perpetrated. They pretend to show you marks of his
blood yet visible on the floor. Although all such horrible vestiges have
been most probably long since obliterated, it is yet just possible that
some may remain. To believe so, at the moment, was a lawful indulgence of
my previous illusion. I could have followed the train of associations thus
created much further, had not the person appointed to act as Cicerone
hurried me through the apartments. Their doors closed against me, and the
spell was broken.

Edinburgh is full of interesting localities; particularly the old town. In
its ancient "wynds and closes," now tenanted by the veriest of the plebeian
race, in former days resided men of the most distinguished rank and
celebrity. Before the stupendous improvements of later times had justly
entitled the Scottish metropolis to the appellation of the modern Athens,
the princes and nobles of the land, its judges and senators, were obliged
to dwell in those dirty streets and alleys, from which "Auld Reekie"
derived its then appropriate appellation. When in progress of time they
removed to more splendid and suitable abodes, their abandoned tenements
became habitations of wretchedness. Much however remained in them to remind