After uttering the last words, she brandished the cudgel and
disappeared.

Lamh Laudher felt considerably puzzled to know what object Ellen could
have had in sending the servant maid for his staff. Of one thing,
however, he was certain, that her motive must have had regard to his
own safety; but how, or in what manner, he could not conjecture. It is
certainly true some misgivings shot lightly across his imagination,
on reflecting that he had parted with the very weapon which he usually
brought with him to repel the violence of Ellen's friends, should he be
detected in an interview with her. He remembered, too, that he had
met unlucky Nell M'Collum, and that the person who deprived him of his
principal means of defence was her niece. He had little time, however,
to think upon the subject, for in a few minutes after Nanse's departure,
he recognized the light quick step of her whom he expected.

The figure of Ellen Neil was tall, and her motions full of untaught
elegance and natural grace. Her countenance was a fine oval; her
features, though not strictly symmetrical, were replete with animation,
and her eyes sparkled with a brilliancy indicative of a warm heart and a
quick apprehension. Flaxen hair, long and luxuriant, decided, even at a
distant glance, the loveliness of her skin, than which the unsunned snow
could not be whiter. If you add to this a delightful temper, buoyant
spirits, and extreme candor, her character, in its strongest points, is
before you.

On reaching the bottom of the Grassy Quarry, as it was called, she
peered under the little beetling cliff that overhung the well-known
ledge on which Lamh Laudher sat.