It was all too much for the aristocratic brain of the present holder of that rank.
She sat in her boudoir at Craigengowan; it was small, but wonderfully pretty; the chairs were all of ivory and gilt; the walls hung with pale blue silk, embroidered with flowers; and she thought ruefully of the time when—if her Lord predeceased her—she would have to quit all that, and take up her abode at Finella Lodge, the humble dower-house—giving place to Dulcie Carlyon. It was all too horrible to think of!
But the couple were coming, and already she could hear the distant cheers of the tenantry.
Several young ladies—among them the daughters of Mr. Kippilaw—were seated about the room in expectation and in lounging attitudes, their garden bonnets or riding habits showing how they had been recently occupied.
A distant sound—was it of carriage-wheels—made her lapdog bark.
'Down, Snap—be quiet,' said Lady Fettercairn with more asperity than was her wont to that plethoric and pampered cur.
The volunteers were under arms on the lawn to salute Florian Melfort as a hero from Zululand; and a salute to his bride was boomed forth from an old battery of 6-pounders on the terrace; a banner was flaunting on the old tower, above all the vanes and turrets; bells were clashing in the distant kirk spire, and the cheers of the Craigengowan tenantry rang up amid the ancient trees in welcome to the heir of Fettercairn and his winsome young wife.
Lord Fettercairn received them at the door with what grace he might; but the hands of many others were held forth to him, among others those of old Kenneth Kippilaw, Madelon Galbraith, the aged butler, and Sandy MacCrupper.
All shadows had fled away, and the bright sunshine of heaven was over Craigengowan and in the hearts of all there.
Even Lady Fettercairn, when she met Florian and saw how like her youngest son and his portrait he looked, felt all that she had of a mother's heart go forth to him as it had never done to the vanished Shafto; while Florian, modest and gentle Florian, whose heart had never quailed before the enemy, now felt, as he said to Dulcie, somewhat 'dashed' on being confronted by this tall and aristocratic grandmother amid such splendid surroundings.