At last there came a morning when, in the house postal-bag, among others at breakfast, Shafto drew forth a letter for Dulcie.
'A letter for Miss Carlyon from the Cape,' he exclaimed; 'what a lot of post-marks! Have you a friend there?'
'One,' said Dulcie in a low voice; and, with a sigh of joyous expectation, like a throb in her bosom, she thrust it into her bodice for perusal by-and-by, when no curious or scrutinizing eyes were upon her, after she had duly performed the most important duty of the day, washing and combing Snap, the pug; and the action was seen by Shafto, who smiled one of his ugly smiles.
When, after a time, she was at leisure, Finella drew near her, expectant of some message.
'Come with me, quick,' said Dulcie; 'I have a letter for you!'
'For me?'
'Enclosed in Florian's.'
Quick as their little feet could take them, the girls hurried to a secluded part of the shrubberies, where stood a tree known as Queen Mary's Thorn. Often when visiting her nobles, the latter had been requested to plant a tree, as if emblematical of prosperity, or in order that its owners might tend and preserve it in honour of their illustrious guest.
Such a tree had been planted there by Queen Mary in the days of the old and previous family, when on her way north to Aberdeen in the eventful year 1562, when she rode to Inverness on horseback. Her room is still pointed out in the house of Craigengowan, and tradition yet tells in the Howe of the Mearns that, unlike the beer-drinking Elizabeth (who boxed her courtiers' ears, and would have made Mrs. Grundy grow pale when she swore like a trooper), thanks to her exquisite training at the court of Catharine de Medici, her grace and bearing at table were different from those of her rival, who helped herself from a platter without fork or spoon, and tore the flesh from the roast with her teeth, like a Soudanese of the present day.
But, as Lord Fettercairn was greatly bored by tourists and artists coming in quest of this thorn-tree, under which the girls now seated themselves, and he could not make money out of it, at a shilling a head, like his Grace of Athole for a glimpse of the Falls of Bruar, he frequently threatened (as he cared about as much for Queen Mary as he did for the Queen of Sheba) to have it cut down, and would have done so long since, but for the intervention of old Mr. Kippilaw the nationalist.