Amy’s rights—­or Emmy let us call her still, as Charles did—­were now, therefore, the next object of Mrs. Mackie’s zeal; and all parties interested willingly listened to the plan of spending one or two of those weary weeks in rubbing up relationships in Scotland; the general also was not a little anxious about heritage and acres.  Accordingly, off they set in the new travelling-carriage, with due notice of approach, heartily welcomed, to Dunstowr Castle, the fine old feudal stronghold of Robert Stuart, Laird of Glenmuir and Glenmurdock.

The journey, the arrival, and the hearty hospitality; and how the gray old chieftain kissed his pretty niece; and how welcome her betrothed Charles and her kind life-long guardian, and her faithful nurse were made; and how the beacons blazed upon the hill-tops, and the mustering clan gathered round about old Dunstowr; and how the laird presented to them all their beautiful future mistress, and how Jeanie Mackie and her documents travelled up to Edinburgh, where writers to the signet pestered her heart-sick with over-caution; and how the case was all cleared up, and the distant disappointed cousin, who had irrationally hoped to be the heir, was gladdened, if not satisfied, with a pension and a cantle of Glenmuir; and how all was joyfulness and feasting, when Amy Stuart was acknowledged in her rights—­the bagpipes and the wassail, salmon, and deer, and black-cock, with a river of mountain dew:  let others tell who know Dunstowr; for as I never was there, of course I cannot faithfully describe it.  Should such an historian as I condescend to sheer inventions?

With respect to Jeanie Mackie, I could learn no more than this:  she was sprightly and lively, and strong as ever, though in her ninetieth year, till her foster-child was righted, and the lawyers had allowed her her claim.  But then there seemed nothing else to live for; so her life gradually faded from her eye, as an expiring candle; and she would doze by the hour, sitting on a settle in the sun, basking her old heart in the smile of those old mountains.  None knew when she died, to a minute; for she died sitting in the sun, in the smile of those old mountains.

They buried her, with much of rustic pomp, in the hill-church of Glenmuir, where all her fathers slept around her; and Emily and Charles, hand-in-hand, walked behind her coffin mournfully.

CHAPTER XXX.

FINAL.

GLADLY would the laird have had marriage at Dunstower, and have given away the beauteous bride himself:  but there must still be two months more of decent mourning, and the general had long learned to sigh for the maligned delights of Burleigh Singleton.  So, Glenmuir could only get a promise of reappearance some fine summer or other:  and, after another day’s deer-stalking, which made the general repudiate telescopes from that day forth (the poor man’s eyes had actually grown lobster-like with straining after antlers)—­the travelling-carriage, and four lean kine from Inverary, whisked away the trio towards the South.