asked Macleod if he would join in it, he answered by asking her to be
his partner, as he would be ashamed to display his ignorance before an
absolute stranger. Mrs. Ross most kindly undertook to pilot him through
the not elaborate intricacies of the dance; and they were fortunate in
having the set made up entirely of their own friends.

Then the procession of the children took place; and the fantastically
dressed crowd formed a lane to let the homely-clad lads and lasses pass
along, with the six small pipers proudly playing a march at their head.

He stopped the last of the children for a second.

"Have you got a tart, and an orange, and a shilling?"

"No, sir."

"I have got the word of a prince for it," he said to himself, as he went
out of the room; "and they shall not go home with empty pockets."

As he was coming up the staircase again to the ball-room he was preceded
by two figures that were calculated to attract any one's notice by the
picturesqueness of their costume. The one stranger was apparently an old
man, who was dressed in a Florentine costume of the fourteenth
century--a cloak of sombre red, with a flat cap of black velvet, one
long tail of which was thrown over the left shoulder and hung down
behind. A silver collar hung from his neck across his breast: other
ornament there was none. His companion, however, drew all eyes toward
her as the two passed into the ball-room. She was dressed in imitation
of Gainsborough's portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire; and her
symmetrical figure and well-poised head admirably suited the long