CHAPTER I.
The Royal Salmon .-- Pretty Kitty .-- Captain Stradling .-- William Dampier.
-- Reveries and Caprices of Miss Catherine.
About the commencement of the last century, the little town of St.
Andrew, the capital of the county of Fife, in Scotland, celebrated then for its University, was not less so for its Inn, the Royal Salmon, which, built in 1681 by a certain Andrew Felton, had descended as an inheritance to his only daughter, Catherine.
This young lady, known throughout the neighborhood under the name of pretty Kitty, had contributed not a little, by her personal charms, to the success and popularity of the inn.

In her early youth, she had been a lively and piquant brunette, with black, glossy hair, combed over a smooth and prominent forehead, and dark, brilliant eyes, a style of beauty much in vogue at that period.

Though tall and slender in stature, she was, as our ancestors would have said, sufficiently _en bon point_.

In fine, Kitty merited her surname, and more than one laird in the neighborhood, more than one great nobleman even,--thanks to the familiarity which reigned among the different classes in Scotland,--had figured occasionally among her customers, caring as little what people might say as did the brave Duke of Argyle, whom Walter Scott has shown as conversing familiarly with his snuff merchant.
At present Catherine Felton is in her second youth.

By a process common enough, but which at first appears contradictory, her attractions have diminished as they developed; her waist has grown thicker, the roses on her cheek assumed a deeper vermilion, her voice has acquired the rough and hoarse tone of her most faithful customers; the slender young girl is transformed into a virago.