She drove quickly back to her hotel, where she had only time to take a slight luncheon before starting in the eleven o'clock coach for Aberdeen, where, after four hours' ride through a wildly picturesque country, she arrived just in time to take the afternoon train to Edinboro'. It was the express train, and reached the old city at seven o'clock that evening.

Among the many hotels whose handbills, pasted on the walls of the railway station, claimed the attention of travelers, Claudia selected "MacGruder's," because it was opposite Scott's monument.

She took a cab and drove there. She liked the appearance of the house, and engaged a comfortable suite of apartments, consisting of a parlor, bed chamber, and bathroom, and ordered dinner.

Now, by all the rules of tradition, Claudia, ignominiously expelled from her husband's house, deprived of her servants' attendance, far from all her friends, alone in a strange hotel in a foreign city, with a degrading trial threatening her--Claudia, I say, ought to have been very unhappy. But she was not. She was almost happy.

Her spirits rebounded from their long depression. Her sensations were those of escape, freedom, independence. She felt like a bird freed from its cage; a prisoner released from captivity; a soul delivered from purgatory. Oh, she was so glad--so glad to get away entirely, to get away forever--from the hold of sin, that Castle Cragg, where she had been buried alive so long; where she had lived in torment among lost spirits; where the monotony had been like the gloom of the grave, and the guilt like the corruption of death!

She had passed through the depths of Hades, and was happy--how happy!--to rise to the upper air again and see the stars. This, only, was enough for the present. And she scarcely thought of the future. Whatever that unknown future might bring her, it would not bring back Castle Cragg, Lord Vincent, Faustina, or Frisbie.

After she had refreshed herself with a bath and a change of dress, she went into the parlor, where she found a warm fire, a bright light, and a neatly laid table.

And whatever you may think of her, she really enjoyed the boiled salmon, roasted moor-hen, and cabinet custard she had ordered for dinner. After the service was removed she sat comfortably in her easy-chair before the fire, and reflected on her future movements.

She liked her quarters in this hotel very much. The rooms were clean and comfortable; the servants were polite and attentive; the meals delicately prepared and elegantly served.

And she resolved to remain here for the present; to write to her father by the first American mail; and while waiting for his answer, beguile the interval by seeing everything that might prove interesting in the city and in the surrounding country.

And in a locality so rich in historical monuments as this was, she was sure of interesting occupation for the month that must intervene before she could hear from her father in answer to the letter which she meant to write.

She had brought with her from Castle Cragg all the ready money she had; it was something more than two hundred pounds; so that there was nothing to fear from financial embarrassments.

After settling this matter to her satisfaction, Claudia, feeling very tired, went to bed, and having lost two nights' rest, immediately fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, that lasted, unbroken, until morning.

Her first sensation on awakening from this sleep of oblivion to the consciousness of her altered circumstances was--not humiliation at her own unmerited dishonor--not dread of the impending, degrading trial--but pleasure at the recollection that she was free; that she was away from Castle Cragg; that she would not have to meet Lord Vincent and Faustina at breakfast; that she would never have to meet them again.

Ah! only those who have been compelled for months to breathe the vitiated atmosphere of guilt can appreciate the excess of Claudia's joy at her deliverance. It was a joy that not even the distressing circumstances that surrounded her, and the trial that awaited her, had any power to destroy.

To one who knew her position, without being able to enter into her feelings, it would have seemed an extravagant, an unnatural, an insane joy. Perhaps she was a little insane; she had had enough trouble to derange her reason.

She arose gladly. She had a motive for rising now; formerly, at Castle Cragg, she had none, because she had nothing to do. Now she had to order her breakfast, write to her father, and drive round to see the old city.

She dressed herself quickly and went into the parlor. The windows were already opened, the fire lighted, and the breakfast table was laid.

She went to the windows and looked out. The morning was clear and bright. It seemed to her that even Nature sympathized in her deliverance. The winter sun shone down brightly upon Scott's monument, that stood within its inclosure in the middle of the space before her windows. Yes, she was pleased with her quarters.

She rang the bell and ordered breakfast, which was quickly served.

When she had finished her morning meal and sent the service away, she got her writing-case from her trunk and sat down to write to her father and give him a detailed account of her misfortunes.

But she found a difficulty in arranging her thoughts; her mind was in too excitable a condition to admit of close application. She commenced, and discarded letter after letter.

Finally, she gave up trying to write for the present. There was time enough; the foreign mail, as she had ascertained, did not close until six o'clock in the evening. She thought a drive through the old city would work off her excitement and tranquilize her nerves.

She rang and ordered a fly, and drove out.

First she went to Holyrood, and soon lost all consciousness of her own present and individual troubles in dreaming of all those princes, heroes, and beauties of history who had lived and sinned or suffered within those old palace walls.

She went into Queen Mary's rooms, and fell into a reverie over that fatal bed-chamber, which remains to this day in the same condition in which it was left by the hapless queen about three hundred years ago. She saw the steep, dark, narrow, secret staircase, with its opening concealed behind the tapestry, up which the assassins of Rizzio had crept to their murderous work. She saw the little turret closet in which the poor queen was at supper with her ladies when the minstrel was surprised and massacred in her presence.

She went into the great picture gallery, where hung the portraits of the Scottish kings--each mother's royal son painted with a large curled proboscis--"a nose like a door-knocker," as someone described it. With one exception--that of James IV., the hapless hero of Flodden field. It was a full-length portrait, life-sized, and full of fire. Claudia stood and gazed upon it with delight. She was charmed by its beauty and by the lines that it brought distinctly to her recollection. Whether this was really a faithful portrait of King James or not, it certainly was an accurate likeness of the hero described by the poet:

"The monarch's form was middle size; For feat of strength or exercise Shaped in proportion fair; And hazel was his eagle eye, And auburn of the darkest dye His short curled beard and hair.

Light was his footstep in the dance And firm his stirrup in the lists; And oh! he had that merry glance That seldom lady's heart resists."

Yes, there he stood before her, pictured to the very life; all luminous with youth and love, chivalry and royalty; bending graciously from the canvas, smiling upon the spectator, and seeming about to step forward and take her hand.

Claudia turned away from this picture, feeling at the same moment both pleased and saddened. She had spent three hours dreaming amongst the ancient halls and bowers of Holyrood, and now she felt that it was time for her to return to the hotel, especially as the palace was beginning to be filled with the usual daily inflowing of sight-seers, and she felt somewhat fatigued and worried by the crowd.

So she went out and re-entered her cab, and was driven back to the hotel. Here an unexpected misfortune awaited her. As she left the cab she put her hand in her pocket to take out her purse and pay the cabman.

It was gone!

She turned sick with apprehension, for the loss of this purse, which contained all the money which she had brought with her, was, under the circumstances, a serious calamity.

She hurried again into the cab and searched it thoroughly; but no purse was to be found.

Then the truth burst upon her; she had been robbed of it by someone in the crowd of visitors in Holyrood Palace; her pocket had probably been picked while she stood in the picture gallery dreaming before the portrait of King James. How she reproached herself for her carelessness in taking so considerable an amount of money with her.

She was excessively agitated; but she managed to control herself sufficiently to speak calmly to the waiter, and say:

"Be good enough to pay this man and put the item in my bill"

The waiter obeyed and discharged the cab; for, of course, the name of Lady Vincent was as yet a passport to credit. Then she hurried to her room in a state of great agitation that nearly deprived her of all power to think or act. She rang the bell, which brought a waiter to her presence.

"I would like to see the landlord of this hotel," she said.

"I beg your pardon, my lady, but the proprietor lives out of town,"

returned the man.

"Then send the clerk of the house, or the head waiter, or whoever is in charge here."

"I will send the clerk, my lady," said the waiter, retiring.

The clerk soon made his appearance.

"Sir," said Claudia, "I sent for you to say, that while I was seeing Holyrood Palace, this forenoon, my pocket was picked of my purse, which contained a considerable amount of money; and I wish to ask you what steps I should take for its recovery?"

"Have you any idea of the sort of person that robbed you, my lady?"

"Not the slightest; all I know is that I had the purse with me when I paid the guide on entering the palace, and then I missed it when I reached home; and all I suspect is that it was purloined from me while I was in the picture gallery, standing before the portrait of James IV."

"In what form was the money, my lady?"

"Five and ten pound Bank of England notes."

"Were the numbers taken?"

"Oh, no; I never thought of taking the numbers."