A general rising therefore took place at an early hour, and Lady Juliana, attended by all the females of the party, was ushered into the chamber of state, which was fitted up in a style acknowledged to be truly magnificent, by all who had ever enjoyed the honour of being permitted to gaze on its white velvet bed curtains, surmounted by the family arms, and gracefully tucked up by hands sinister-couped at the wrists, etc.  But lest my fashionable readers should be of a different opinion, I shall refrain from giving an inventory of the various articles with which this favoured chamber was furnished.  Misses Grizzy and Jacky occupied the green room which had been fitted up at Sir Sampson’s birth.  The curtains hung at a respectful distance from the ground; the chimney-piece was far beyond the reach even of the majestic Jacky’s arm; and the painted tiffany toilet was covered with a shoal of little tortoise-shell boxes of all shapes and sizes.  A grim visage, scowling from under a Highland bonnet, graced by a single black feather, hung on high.  Miss Grizzy placed herself before it, and, holding up the candle, contemplated it for about the nine hundredth time, with an awe bordering almost on adoration.

“Certainly Sir Eneas must have been a most wonderful man—­nobody can deny that; and there can be no question but he had the second-sight to the greatest degree—­indeed, I never heard it disputed; many of his prophecies, indeed, seem to have been quite incomprehensible; but that is so much the more extraordinary; you know—­for instance, the one with regard to our family,” lowering her voice; “for my part I declare I never could comprehend it; and yet there must be something in it, too; but how any branch from the Glenfern tree—­of course, you know, that can only mean the family tree—­should help to prop Lochmarlie’s walls, is what I can’t conceive.  If Sir Sampson had a son, to be sure, some of the girls—­for you know it can’t be any of us; at least I declare for my own part—­I’m sure even if any thing which I trust, in goodness, there is not the least chance of, should ever happen to dear Lady Maclaughlan, and Sir Sampson should take it into his head—­which, of course, is a thing not to be thought about—­and indeed I’m quite convinced it would be very much out of respect to dear Lady Maclaughlan, a friendship for us, if such a thing was ever into his head.”

Here the tender Grizzy got so involved in her own ideas as to the possibility of Lady Maclaughlan’s death, and the propriety of Sir Sampson’s proposals, together with the fulfilling of Sir Eneas the seer’s prophecy, that there is no saying how far she strayed in her self-created labyrinth.  Such as choose to follow her may.  For our part, we prefer accompanying the youthful Becky to her chamber, whither she was also attended by the lady of the mansion.  Becky’s destiny for the night lay at the top of one of those little straggling wooden stairs common in old houses, which creaked in all directions.  The bed was placed in a recess dark as Erebus, and betwixt the bed and the wall, was a depth profound, which Becky’s eye dared not attempt to penetrate.