That same night Mrs. Catanach also disappeared.

A week after, what was left of Lord Lossie was buried.  Malcolm followed the hearse with the household.  Miss Horn walked immediately behind him, on the arm of the schoolmaster.  It was a great funeral, with a short road, for the body was laid in the church—­close to the wall, just under the crusader with the Norman canopy.

Lady Florimel wept incessantly for three days; on the fourth she looked out on the sea and thought it very dreary; on the fifth she found a certain gratification in hearing herself called the marchioness; on the sixth she tried on her mourning and was pleased; on the seventh she went with the funeral and wept again; on the eighth came Lady Bellair, who on the ninth carried her away.

To Malcolm she had not spoken once.

Mr. Graham left Portlossie.

Miss Horn took to her bed for a week.

Mr. Crathie removed his office to the House itself, took upon him the function of steward as well as factor, had the state-rooms dismantled, and was master of the place.

Malcolm helped Stoat with the horses and did odd jobs for Mr. Crathie.  From his likeness to the old marquis, as he was still called, the factor had a favor for him, firmly believing the said marquis to be his father and Mrs. Stewart his mother; and hence it came that he allowed him a key to the library.

The story of Malcom’s plans and what came of them requires another book.

THE STAGE IN ITALY.

The Italians are undoubtedly the most theatre-loving people in the world.  With them the play-house takes the place to a great extent of drawing-room and evening lounge.  Almost every Italian family of any social position possesses a box at one of the principal theatres, where visits are received and many a scene from the School for Scandal is enacted whilst the fair gossip-mongers flirt and sip ices.  In winter the opera is the standard amusement of the fashionable world, while the favorite resort in summer is the diurno or open air theatre, which is in the form of an amphitheatre, the stage with its accessories facing an unroofed enclosure, with the seats arranged in tiers one above another, and fenced off by an iron balustrade from a terrace which serves the purpose of a gallery.  A vast covered corridor is nearly always to be found adjacent to the diurno, beneath which the audience can take refuge in case of a shower, walk between the acts and indulge in bebite—­cooling drinks, such as sherbets and beer.  The abbonamento (or subscription) to a diurno costs from three to ten dollars for the season of thirty or forty representations.  When a dramatic company is about to visit a city the manager first secures his abbonati, for according to their number he is able to regulate his expenses, as he counts little on chance spectators, and is sure to have almost always to play before the same audience.