The Lost Lady of Lone | Page 5

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 a home for him in his declining years,
when he should have made a few more millions of millions upon which
to retire!
And now this long neglected daughter had found consolation in
devotion, and wished to take the vail which was to hide her forever
from the world!

Sir Lemuel Levison hastened to France, and brought his daughter back
to England. He took apartments at a quiet London hotel, and looked
about for a suitable country-seat to purchase.
At this time Lone was advertised. He went thither with the crowd.
He saw Lone, liked it, wanted it, and determined to "pay for it and take
it."
He stopped the vandalish dismantling of the premises by outbidding
everybody else and purchasing all the furniture, decorations, plate,
pictures, statues, vases, mosaics, and everything else, and ordering
them to be left in their old positions.
He then engaged the house-steward, the housekeeper, and as many
more of the servants of the late proprietor as he could induce to remain
at Lone.
And when the princely castle was cleared of its crowds, and once more
restored to order, beauty and peace, Sir Lemuel Levison went back to
London to bring his daughter home.
Salome, submissive to her father's will, yet disappointed in her wish to
take the vail, met every event in life with apathy.
Even when the splendors of Lone broke upon her vision she regarded
them with an air of indifference that amused, while it mortified, her
father.
"I see how it is, my