Black coats and hats ring at the bell, and pass in and out of the different apartments.
The hall table is sprinkled with letters, visiting-cards, and programmes which seem to have had the alphabet shaken out upon them, for they bear the names of professors, doctors, reverends, and very reverends, and fairly bristle with A.M.'s, M.A.'s, A.B.'s, D.D.'s, and LL.D.'s.

The voice of family prayer is lifted up from the dining-room floor, and paraphrases and hymns float down the stairs from above.

Their Graces the Lord High Commissioner and the Marchioness of Heatherdale will arrive to-day at Holyrood Palace, there to reside during the sittings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and to-morrow the Royal Standard will be hoisted at Edinburgh Castle from reveille to retreat.
His Grace will hold a levee at eleven.

Directly His Grace leaves the palace after the levee, the guard of honour will proceed by the Canongate to receive him on his arrival at St.Giles' Church, and will then proceed to Assembly Hall to receive him on his arrival there.

The Sixth Inniskilling Dragoons and the First Battalion Royal Scots will be in attendance, and there will be Unicorns, Carricks, pursuivants, heralds, mace-bearers, ushers, and pages, together with the Purse-bearer, and the Lyon King-of-Arms, and the national anthem, and the royal salute; for the palace has awakened and is 'mimicking its past.' 'Should the weather be wet, the troops will be cloaked at the discretion of the commanding officer.' They print this instruction as a matter of form, and of course every man has his macintosh ready.