'The wife of a cavalier who died with Montrose on the scaffold of Edinburgh gave them to an ancestor of ours to save his life. This was the first viscount, who was a zealous Covenanter, and the bosom friend of Lord Warriston. He certainly took the jewels from the poor sorrowing wife——'
'And the cavalier?'
'Was beheaded by the Maiden at the market-cross, and a kind of curse seems to have attended these diamonds ever since.'
'A cruel story.'
'But a true one.'
Eveline laughed at the superstition, kissed her cold, proud mother, and carried her point; thus, at the time when carriage after carriage was depositing guests at the great arched entrance hall, Eveline was surveying her figure and face in the mirror with all a young girl's satisfaction and thinking that her slender white throat never looked as it did then, when encircled by the sparkling diamonds of the luckless widow, and Olive at the same time was looking radiant in the Maltese suite of Allan.
How the two last named enjoy the carpet-dance! Perfect confidence was so sweetly established between them, they had so many little secrets to tell, so many revelations to make, so many comparisons, of mutual hopes and fears, and so forth, while each seemed to exult in the affection of the other, and felt in their hearts the words ascribed to old Catullus:—
'Let those love now who never loved before.
Let those who always loved, now love the more!'
'Those two young fools seem to understand each other and each other's interests at last!' whispered Lord to Lady Aberfeldie, with a smile of amusement.
'But there are two other young fools present who are doing their best to mar each other's interests,' was her cold and warning response.