The summer had passed away, and now brown autumn was once more reddening the heather of the Pentlands, and spreading her dun tints over the woods of Bruntisfield; the sombre eve was closing fast, but the bright fire burned merrily as ever in the chamber-of-dais at the old castellated Place, and ruddily its warm light shone through the barred windows into the recesses of the old woodlands, which every passing breeze robbed of some of their crisped foliage, and strewed it over the muirlands to the south. The old manor-house had recovered from the rages of that terrible night in 1688, and was now repaired, and stronger than ever; the windows were more thickly grated, and numerous loopholes and two additional turrets defended the barbican gate.
Lilian and her friend Annie were seated side by side as of old, and opposite sat Lady Grisel—but a change had come over them all. Though the hale old lady recovered from the shock of Lilian's abduction, it had seriously affected her health, and now she was a picture of the helplessness of extreme old age, in her dotage, pale and querulous, but ever gentle and childlike. She occupied the same old fringed chair, with its bobs of parti-coloured silk, in which she had sat every evening for fifty years; her ivory wheel, though now unused, stood on one side of it, and her tall metal-headed cane on the other. Lilian was paler and thinner, and had lost much of her girlish beauty; she had many cares gnawing at her heart, but she was still as adorable and interesting as ever. Annie was, if possible, more so than formerly; the bloom of her beauty had expanded to the utmost; her cheek had a higher colour, and her eye a brighter sparkle; her tall and beautiful figure was more inclined to embonpoint. But alas for poor Finland, the fickle Laurie was now the wife of Craigdarroch, who had risen to the rank of Colonel of Horse in the new Scottish army of William III. Her dress was more matronly and magnificent than formerly, and her rich flower tabby suit, with its brocade stomacher and silver fringes, contrasted with Lilian's plain blue suit of Florence silk with its falls of point d'Espagne.
Ashamed that she had broken her own solemn engagements to her exiled lover, with the natural fickleness of her sex, Annie was labouring to undermine the truth of Lilian, and, Heaven knows why, tormented the poor girl hourly, by urging the suit of Lord Clermistonlee, and left no arguments untried to carry her point, and remove the scruples of her more gentle but less facile friend.
"And poor Walter!" urged Lilian, with a look of great tenderness in her mild and moistened eyes, replying to some observation of Annie.
"Marry come up with your Walter!—tush! bethink you, dear Lilian, this gallant never loved you truly, or else, dost think he would have preferred following King James?"
Lilian's eyes sparkled; a terrible retort trembled on her tongue, but her gentleness repressed it, and she could only exclaim with tears—
"Oh, horror! this insinuation is the most unkind of all. The unmerited shame and contumely, the dark and dishonourable suspicions that the malice of Clermistonlee has brought upon me I can bear, for I despise though I mourn them deeply—but a doubt of Walter's faith—oh, Annie, Annie, it sinks like a dagger in my heart. 'Tis the hope of his return, animated by the same spirit of love and truth in which he left me, that makes me rise superior to them all. Oh, yes!" she exclaimed, with girlish ecstasy, "my dear, dear Walter, the hour will yet come, when, with a kiss of affection, I will tell thee that this old manor and all these lands around it are thine, for ever thine!"
"And your heart?" laughed Annie.
"Dearest, that he has already. You see you cannot make me angry."
"And Clermistonlee?"