certainly absolute fiar, and might dispose of it in full right of
property. All that we have to hope is, that the devil may not have
tempted her to alter this very proper settlement. You must attend
the old girl's funeral to-morrow, to which you will receive an
invitation, for I have acquainted her agent with your being here
on Miss Bertram's part; and I will meet you afterwards at the
house she inhabited, and be present to see fair play at the
opening of the settlement. The old cat had a little girl, the
orphan of some relation, who lived with her as a kind of slavish
companion. I hope she has had the conscience to make her
independent, in consideration of the peine forte et dure to which
she subjected her during her lifetime.'

Three gentlemen now appeared, and were introduced to the stranger.
They were men of good sense, gaiety, and general information, so
that the day passed very pleasantly over; and Colonel Mannering
assisted, about eight o'clock at night, in discussing the
landlord's bottle, which was, of course, a magnum. Upon his return
to the inn he found a card inviting him to the funeral of Miss
Margaret Bertram, late of Singleside, which was to proceed from
her own house to the place of interment in the Greyfriars
churchyard at one o'clock afternoon.

At the appointed hour Mannering went to a small house in the
suburbs to the southward of the city, where he found the place of
mourning indicated, as usual in Scotland, by two rueful figures
with long black cloaks, white crapes and hat-bands, holding in
their hands poles, adorned with melancholy streamers of the same
description. By two other mutes, who, from their visages, seemed
suffering under the pressure of some strange calamity, he was