"She _is_ a bonny lass, but na too gude for him, although her fair
hand does gie him back his lands."

"It's only a' just as it sud be."

"Na, it's no all as it sud be. Look at they fules trying to pit
up yon triumphal arch! The loons hae actually gotten the motto
'HAPPINESS' set upside down, sae that a' the blooming red roses
are falling out o' it. An ill omen that if onything be an ill omen. I
maun rin and set it right."

The speakers in this short colloquy were Mrs. Girzie Ross, housekeeper,
and Mr. Alexander McRath, house-steward of Castle Lone.

The locality was in the Highlands of Scotland. The season was early
summer. The hour was near sunset. The scene was one of great beauty and
sublimity. The occasion one of high festivity and rejoicing.

The preparations were being completed for a grand event. For on the
morning of the next day a deep wrong was to be made right by the marriage
of the young and beautiful Lady of Lone to the chosen lord of her heart.

Lone Castle was a home of almost ideal grandeur and loveliness, situated
in one of the wildest and most picturesque regions of the Highlands, yet
brought to the utmost perfection of fertility by skillful cultivation.

The castle was originally the stronghold of a race of powerful and
warlike Scottish chieftains, ancestors of the illustrious ducal line of
Scott-Hereward. It was strongly built, on a rocky island, that arose from