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"Aurelia!" he whispered to himself, and marvelled if the time would ever come, when he would bring her hither to be the queen of his life, and of beautiful Ardgowrie.

Day by day, his father was sinking, and all the powers of medicine could do nothing for him; his ailment was not old age but a passing away of the powers of life. The old Highland housekeeper, Elspat, had much contempt for the nostrums of the doctor, and believing her master to be under the spell of a gipsy-woman whom he had sent to prison for theft, maintained that he would never be cured, until the parings of his finger nails and a lock of his hair were buried in the earth with a live cock, a remnant of ancient Paganrie, which the reign of Victoria still finds prevailing in some parts of the Highlands.

So, as she fully expected, the morning of the 5th of August, saw the old Laird expire peacefully, after playing fatuously with the coverlet, and muttering that he could "hear the drums of the Royal beating the old Scots March," and the lamenting wail of Macaulay's pipe was heard on the terrace without, as Roland closed his father's eyes, and, crushed with natural grief, knelt by the side of his bed, and Elspat placed a plate containing a little salt on his breast.