The Lost Lady of Lone. Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

fatal!—for a hundred thousand pounds sterling, won by the son's self-sacrifice, which should have gone to satisfy the clamorous creditors of the duke, was squandered in extravagant preparations to royally entertain England's expensive royal family.

      A second time Lone was the scene of unparalleled display, festivity, and rejoicing. Once more all the country round about was assembled there; again the artists and reporters of the London press were among the crowd; and again full-page pictures of the ceremonies attending the queen's reception and entertainment were published in the illustrated papers, and the fame of that royal visit went out to the uttermost parts of the earth.

      But mark this: Every footman that waited at the grand state-dinner table was a bailiff in disguise, in charge of the plate and china, which, together with all the fabulous riches of art, literature, science and virtu collected at Lone had been taken in execution, by the officers secretly in possession.

      The royal party, with their retinue, left Lone on the afternoon of the third day.

      And then the crash came? The blow was sudden, overwhelming and utterly destructive.

      The shock of the fall of Lone was felt from one end of the kingdom to the other.

      For the last time a crowd gathered around Castle Lone. But they came not as festive guests but as a flock of vultures around a carcass, bent on prey. For the last time artists and reporters came not to illustrate the triumphs, but to record the downfall of the great ducal house of Scott-Hereward; to make sketches, take photographs and write descriptions of the magnificent and splendid halls and chambers, picture-galleries and museums, before they should be dismantled by the rapacious purchasers who flocked to the vendue of Lone, to profit by the ruin of the proprietor.

      And for the last time illustrations of Lone and its glories went forth over every part of the world where the English language is spoken, or the English mails penetrate.

      Another heavy blow fell upon the doomed duke. Even while the grand vendue was still in progress the duchess died of grief.

      When all was over, and the good duchess was laid in the family vault, the duke and the young marquis disappeared from Lone and none knew whither they went. Some said that they had gone to Australia; some that they were in America; some that they were on the Continent. Others declared that they had hidden themselves in the wilderness of London, where they were living in great poverty and obscurity, and even under assumed names.

      Opinions and rumors differed also concerning the character and conduct of the young marquis. Many called him a devoted son, filled with the spirit of heroic self-sacrifice. Many others affirmed that he was a hypocrite and a villain, addicted to drinking, gambling, and other vices and even cited times, places, and occasions of his sinning.

      There never lived a man of whom so much good and so much evil was said as of the young Marquis of Arondelle. A stranger coming into the neighborhood of Lone, would hear these opposite reports and never be able to decide whether the absent and self-exiled young nobleman was a model of virtue or a monster of vice.

      But there was one whose faith in him was firm as her faith in Heaven.

      Rose Cameron was the daughter of a Highland shepherd, living about ten miles north of Ben Lone. No court lady in the land was fairer than this rustic Highland beauty. Her form was tall, fine, and commanding. Her step was stately and graceful as the step of an antelope. Her features were large, regular, and clear cut, as if chiseled in marble, yet full of blooming and sparkling life as ruddy health and mountain air could fill them. Her hair was golden brown, and clustered in innumerable shining ringlets closely around her fair open forehead and rounded throat. Her eyes were large, and clear bright blue. Her expression full of innocent freedom and joyousness.

      Rumor said that the fast young Marquis of Arondelle, while deer-stalking from his hunting lodge in the neighborhood of Ben Lone, had chanced to draw rein at the gate of Rob. Cameron's sheiling, and had received from the shapely hand of the beautiful shepherdess a cup of water, and had been so suddenly and forcibly smitten by her Juno-like beauty, that thenceforth his visits to his hunting lodge became very frequent, both in season and out of season, and that he was a very dry soul, whose thirst could be satisfied by nothing but the spring water that spouted close by the shepherd's sheiling, dipped up and offered by the hands of the beautiful shepherdess.

      Much blame was cast by the rustic neighbors upon all parties concerned—first of all, upon the young marquis, who they declared "meant nae guid to the lass," and then to the old shepherd, who they said, "suld tak mair care o' his puir mitherless bairn," and lastly, to the girl, who, as they affirmed, "suld guide hersel' wi' mair discretion."

      None of these criticisms ever came to the ears of the parties concerned: they never do, you know.

      Besides the lovers seemed to be infatuated with each other, and the shepherd seemed to be blind to what was going on in his sheiling. To be sure, he was out all day with his sheep, while his lass was alone in the sheiling. Or, if by sickness he was forced to stay home, then she was out all day with the sheep alone.

      Gossip said that the young marquis visited the handsome shepherdess in her sheiling, and met her by appointment, when she was out with her flock.

      And as the occasion grew, so grew the scandal, and so grew indignation against the marquis and scorn of the shepherdess.

      "He'll nae mean to marry the quean! If she were my lass, I'd kick him out, an' he were twenty times a markis!" said the shepherd's next neighbor, and many approved his sentiment. These were among the detractors of the young nobleman.

      But he had warm defenders—who affirmed that the Marquis of Arondelle would never seek a peasant girl to win her affections, unless he intended to make her his marchioness—which was an idea too preposterous to be entertained for an instant—therefore there could be no truth in these rumors.

      And at length, when the great thunderbolt fell that destroyed Lone and banished the ducal family, there were not wanting "guid neebors" who taunted Rose Cameron with such words as these:

      "The braw young markis hae made a fule o' ye, lass. Thoul't ne'er see him mair. And a guid job, too. Best ye'd ne'er see him at a'!"

      But the handsome shepherdess betrayed no sign of mortification or doubt. When such prognostics were uttered, she crested her queenly head with a smile of conscious power, and looked as though—"she could, an if she would,"—tell more about the Marquis of Arondelle, than any of these people guessed.

      Meanwhile, princely Lone passed into the possession of Sir Lemuel Levison, a London banker of enormous wealth. He had not always been Sir Lemuel Levison. But he had once been Lord Mayor of London, and for some part that he had taken in a public demonstration or a royal pageant, (I forget which,) he had been knighted by her Majesty.

      He was, at this time, a tall, spare, fair-faced, gray-haired and gray bearded man of sixty-five. He was a widower, with "one only daughter," the youngest and sole survivor of a large family of children.

      This daughter, Salome, had never known a mother's love nor a father's care. She was under three years old when her mother passed away.

      Then her father, hating his desolate home, broke up his establishment on Westbourne Terrace, London, and placed his infant daughter under the care of the nuns in the Convent of the Holy Nativity in France.

      Here Salome Levison passed the days of her dreamy childhood and early youth. Her father seldom found time to visit her at her convent school, and she never went home to spend her holidays. She had no home to go to.

      When Salome was eighteen years of age, the Superior of the convent wrote to Sir Lemuel Levison, enclosing a letter from his daughter that considerably startled the absorbed banker and forgetful father. He had not seen his daughter for two years, and now these letters informed him that she wished to become a Nun of the Holy Nativity, and to enter upon her novitiate immediately! But that being a minor, she could not do so without his consent.

      His sole surviving child! The sole heiress of his enormous wealth! On whom he depended, to make