MARRIAGE A NOVEL By SUSAN FERRIER EDITED, WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE, BY A. GOODRICH-FREER WITH CRITICAL NOTICES BY WALTER, EARL OF IDDESLEIGH VOLUME II WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY ARTHUR H. BUCKLAND LONDON METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. MDCCCCII MARRIAGE CHAPTER XXXIII "Edina! Scotia's darling seat! All hail thy palaces and tow'rs, ALL Mary's sensations of admiration were faint compared to those she experienced as she viewed the Scottish metropolis. It was associated in her mind, with all the local prepossessions to which youth and enthusiasm love to give "a local habitation and a name "; and visions of older times floated o'er her mind, as she gazed on its rocky battlements, and traversed the lonely arcades of its deserted palace. "And this was once a gay court!" thought she, as she listened to the dreary echo of her own footsteps; "and this very ground on which I now stand, was trod by the hapless Mary Stuart ! Her eye beheld the same objects that mine now rests upon; her hand has touched the draperies I now hold in mine. These frail memorials remain; but what remains of Scotland's Queen but a blighted name !" Even the blood - stained chamber possessed a VOL. II.-I nameless charm for Mary's vivid imagination. She had not entirely escaped the superstitions of the country in which she had lived; and she readily yielded her assent to the asseverations of her guide, as to its being the bona fide blood of David Rizzio, which, for nearly three hundred years, had resisted all human efforts to efface. "My credulity is so harmless," said she in answer to her uncle's attempt to laugh her out of her belief, "that I surely may be permitted to indulge it--especially since, I confess, I feel a sort of indescribable pleasure in it." "You take a pleasure in the sight of blood!" exclaimed Mr. Douglas in astonishment, "you who turn pale at sight of a cut finger, and shudder at a leg of mutton with the juice in it!" "Oh! mere modern vulgar blood is very shocking," answered Mary, with a smile; "but observe how this is mellowed by time into a tint that could not offend the most fastidious fine lady; besides," added she, in a graver tone, "I own I love to believe in things supernatural; it seems to connect us more with another world, than when everything is seen to proceed in the mere ordinary course of nature, as it is called. I cannot bear to imagine a dreary chasm betwixt the inhabitants of this world, and beings of a higher sphere; I love to fancy myself surrounded by " "I wish to heaven you would remember you are surrounded by rational beings, and not fall into such rhapsodies," said her uncle, glancing at a party, who stood near them, jesting upon all the objects which Mary had been regarding with so much veneration. "But come, you have been long enough here. Let us try whether a breeze on the |