She was one of a long-lived
race: her father had been eighty-nine when he died, and her
grandfather ninety-nine. Now, it is perfectly possible--and, as the
family had been on the spot for centuries, it is even probable--that
her great-grandfather might have dug the hole in which Mary planted
her tree, or he may have saddled the queen's horse when she went
hunting, or stood by the roadside and lifted his bonnet as she and her
gay train swept by. Or he may have been despatched upon royal errands
through the subterranean passage which is said to exist all the way
between Cockhoolet Castle and Edinburgh--the private telegraph of
those days, when wires in the air or under the sea by which to send
messages would have cost the inventors their lives as guilty of
witchcraft. While shaking hands with this old woman and speaking to
her, you lost sight of her and the present time and felt the air of
the sixteenth century blow in your face. Mary came up before you in
moving habit as she lived--the young Mary who caught all hearts, not
heartless herself, and laid hold of mere straws to save herself as
she drifted desperately with circumstances; not the woman who has been
painted as an actor from first to last, as coming forth draped for
effect at the very closing scene,--not that woman, but the girlish
queen who laughed and called to the echo, and forgot the cares of a
kingdom while she could.
IV.
"They are a nice family, those Ormistons," said Mr.
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