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"I don't know." "We will be ashore for him in the morning, whatever," says John of Skye, cheerfully; and you would have thought it was his guest, and not ours, who was coming on board.

The roaring out of the anchor chain was almost immediately followed by Master Fred's bell. Mary Avon was silent and distraite at dinner; but nothing more was said of her return to London. It was understood that when Angus Sutherland came on board we should go back to Castle Osprey, and have a couple of days on shore, to let the White Dove get rid of her parasitic sea-weed.

Then, after dinner, a fishing excursion; but this was in a new loch, and we were not very successful. Or was it that most of us were watching, from this cup of water surrounded by the circle of great mountains, the strange movings of the clouds in the gloomy and stormy twilight, long after the sun had sunk?

"It is not a very sheltered place," remarked the Laird, "if a squall were to come down from the hills."

But by-and-by something appeared that lent an air of stillness and peace to this sombre scene around us. Over one of those eastern mountains a faint, smoky, suffused yellow light began to show; then the outline of the mountain-serrated with trees-grew dark; then the edge of the moon appeared over the black line of trees; and by-and-by the world was filled with this new, pale light, though the shadows on the hills were deeper than ever. We did not hurry on our way back to the yacht. It was a magical night-the black overhanging hills, the white clouds crossing the blue vaults of the heavens, the wan light on the sea. What need for John of Skye to put up that golden lamp at the bow? But it guided us on our way back-under the dusky shadows of the hills.

Then below, in the orange-lit cabin, with cards and dominoes and chess about, a curious thing overhead happens to catch the eye of one of the gamblers. Through the sky-light, with this yellow glare, we ought not to see anything; but there, shining in the night, is a long bar of pale phosphorescent green light. What can this be? Why green? And it is Mary Avon who first suggests what this strangely luminous thing must be-the boom, wet with the dew, shining in the moonlight.

Come," says the Laird to her, "put a shawl round ye, and we will go up for another look round."

And so, after a bit, they went on deck, these two, leaving the others to their bézique. And the Laird was as careful about the wrapping up of this girl as if she had been a child of five years of age; and when they went out on to the white deck, he would give her his arm that she should not trip over any stray rope; and they were such intimate friends now that he did not feel called upon to talk to her.

But by-and-by the heart of the Laird was lifted up within him because of the wonderful beauty and silence of this moonlight night.

"It is a great peety," said he, “that you in the south are not brought up as children to be familiar with the Scotch version of the Psalms of David. It is a fountain-head of poetry that ye can draw from all your life long; and is there any poetry in the world can beat it? And many a time I think that David had a great love for mountains, and that he must have looked at the hills around Jerusalem, and seen them on many a night like this. Ye can not tell, lassie, what stirs in the heart of a Scotchman or Scotchwoman when they repeat the 121st Psalm:

'I to the hills will lift mine eyes,

From whence doth come mine aid;
My safety cometh from the Lord

Who heaven and earth hath made.
Thy foot he'll not let slide, nor will
He slumber that thee keeps:
Behold, He that keeps Israel

He slumbers not nor sleeps.'

Ask your friend Dr. Sutherland-ask him whether he has found anything among his philosophy, and science, and the newfangled leeterature of the day, that comes so near to his heart as a verse of the old Psalms that he learnt as a boy. I have heard of Scotch soldiers in distant countries just bursting out crying when they heard by chance a bit repeated o' the Psalms of David. And the strength and reliance of them: what grander source of consolation can ye have? 'As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth even forever.' What are the trials of the hour to them that believe and know and hope? They have a sure faith; the captivity is not forever. Do ye remember the beginning of the 126th

Psalm-it reminds me most of all of the seen her sence she was knee-high to a hoptoad, as you may say. He ain't livin', is

Scotch phrase,

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The Laird was silent for a minute or two; there was nothing but the pacing up and down the moon-lit deck.

"And you have your troubles too, my lass," said he at length. "Oh, I know, though ye put so brave a face on it. But you need not be afraid-you need not be afraid. Keep up your heart. I am an old man now; I may have but few years to reckon on; but while I live ye will not want a friend.... Ye will not want a friend.... If I forget, or refuse what I promise ye this night, may God do so and more unto me!"

But the good-hearted Laird will not have her go to sleep with this solemnity weighing on her mind.

"Come, come," he says, cheerfully, "we will go below now; and you will sing me a song the Queen's Maries, if ye like-though I doubt but that they were a lot o' wild hizzies."

MISS BEULAH'S BONNET. "DON'T want to be too fine, ye know, Mary Jane; somethin' tasty and kind of suitable. It's an old bunnit; but my! them Leghorns 'll last a generation if you favor 'em: that was mother's weddin' bunnit."

"You don't say so! Well, it has kept remarkable well; but a good Leghorn will last, that's a fact, though they get real brittle after a spell; and you'll have to be awful careful of this, Miss Beulah; it's brittle now, I see."

he?"

"No; he died two years ago, leavin' her with three children. Sarah is a grown girl; and then there's Jack, he's eight, and Janey, she's three. There was four died between Jack and Sarah. I guess she's full eighteen."

"Mercy to me! time flies, don't it? But about the bunnit: what should you say to this lavender ribbin?"

66

Ain't I kind of dark for lavender? I had an idee to have brown, or mabbe dark green."

"Land for spring? Why, that ain't the right thing. This lavender is real han'some, and I'll set it off with a little black lace, and put a bow on't in the front; it'll be real dressy and seemly for you."

"Well, you can try it, Mary Jane; but I give you fair warnin', if I think it's too dressy, you'll have to take it all off."

"I'm willin'," laughed Miss Mary Jane Beers, a good old soul, and a contemporary of her customer, Miss Beulah Larkin, who was an old maid living in Dorset on a small amount of money carefully invested, and owning the great red house which her grandfather had built for a large family on one corner of his farm. Farm and family were both gone now, save and except Miss Beulah and her niece; but the old lady and a little maid she had taken to bring up dwelt in one end of the wide house, and contrived to draw more than half their subsistence from the garden and orchard attached to it.

Here they spun out an innocent existence, whose chief dissipations were evening meetings, sewing societies, funerals, and the regular Sunday services, to which all the village faithfully repaired, and any absence from which was commented on, investigated, and reprobated, if without good excuse, in the most unsparing manner. Miss Beulah Larkin was tall, gaunt, hard-featured, and good. Everybody respected her, some feared, and a few loved her; but she was not that sort of soul which thirsts to be loved; her whole desire and design was to do her duty and be respectable. Into this latter clause came the matter of a bonnet, over which she had held such anxious discourse. If she had any feminine vanity

"Yes, I expect it is, but it'll carry me through this summer, I guess. But I want you to make it real tasty, Mary Jane, for my niece Miss Smith, she that was 'Liza Barber, is coming to stay awhile to our house this summer, and she lives in-and she was a woman-it took this virthe city, you know."

tuous aspect of a desire to be "respectit "Liza Barber! do tell! Why, I haven't like the lave," for decency of dress as well

as demeanor. This spring she had received a letter from her niece, the widowed Mrs. Smith, asking if she could come to visit her; and sending back a pleased assent, Miss Beulah and her little handmaid, Nanny Starks, bestirred themselves to sweep and garnish the house, already fresh and spotless from its recent annual cleaning. Windows were opened, beds put out to sun, blankets aired, spreads unfolded, sheets taken from the old chests, and long-disused dimity curtains washed, ironed, and tacked up against the smallpaned sashes, and tied back with scraps of flowered ribbon, exhumed from hidden shelves, that might well have trimmed that Leghorn bonnet in its first youth.

towel had been hung on the various washstands, and while yet the great batch of sweet home-made bread was hot from the oven; and, alas for Miss Beulah! before that Leghorn bonnet had come home from Miss Beers's front parlor, in which she carried on her flourishing millinery business. Miss Larkin was unfeignedly glad to see Eliza again, though her eyes grew a little dim, perceiving how time had transformed the fresh, gay girl she remembered into this sad and sallow woman; but she said nothing of these changes, and giving the rest an equal welcome, established them in the clean, large, cool chambers that were such a contrast to the hot rooms, small and dingy, of their city home.

Jack was a veritable little pickle; tall of his age, and light of foot and hand; nature had framed him in body and mind for mischief; while Sarah was a pleasant, handy young girl, as long as noth

rosy poppet, who adored Jack, and rebelled against her mother and Sarah hourly. Jack was a born nuisance; Miss Beulah could hardly endure him, he did so controvert all the orders and manners. of her neat house. He hunted the hens to the brink of distraction, and broke up their nests till eggs were scarce to find-a state of things never before known in that old barn, where the hens had dwelt and done their duty, till that duty had consigned them to the stew-pan, for years and years. He made the cat's life a burden to her in a hundred ways, and poor Nanny Starks had never any rest or peace till her tormentor was safe in bed.

Mrs. Eliza Smith was a poor woman, but a woman of resource. Her visit was not purely of affection, or of family respect. Her daughter Sarah-a pretty, slight, graceful girl, with gold-brown hair, dark straight brows above a pair of lim-ing opposed her, and Janey a round and pid gray eyes, red lips, and a clear pale skin-had been intended by her mother to blossom into beauty in due season, and "marry well," as the phrase goes; but Sarah and a certain Fred Wilson, telegraph operator in Dartford, had set all the thrifty mother's plans at defiance, and fallen head over heels in love, regardless of Mrs. Smith or anybody else. Sarah's brows were not black and straight, or her chin firm and cleft with a dimple, for nothing: she meant to marry Fred Wilson as soon as was convenient; and Mrs. Smith, having unusual common-sense, as well as previous experience of Sarah's capacity of resistance, ceased to oppose that young lady's resolute intention. Master Mrs. Smith began to fear her visit would Wilson had already gone West, to a more be prematurely shortened on Jack's aclucrative situation than Dartford afford- count, and Sarah, who had wisely coned, and Sarah was only waiting to get fided her love affair to Aunt Beulah, and ready as to her outfit, and amass enough stirred that hardened heart to its core money for the cost of travelling, to follow by her pathetic tale of poverty and sephim, since he was unable to return for aration, began to dread the failure of her her, both from lack of money and time. hopes also, for her aunt had more than In this condition of things it occurred to hinted that she would give something toMrs. Smith that it would save a good deal ward that travelling money which was of money if she could spend the summer now the girl's great object in life, since with Aunt Beulah, and so be spared the by diligent sewing she had almost finexpense of board and lodging for her fam- ished her bridal outfit. As for Janey, ily. Accordingly, she looked about for she was already, in spite of her naughtia tenant for her little house; and findingness, mistress of Aunt Beulah's very soul: one ready to come in sooner than she had anticipated, she answered Aunt Beulah's friendly letter of invitation with an immediate acceptance, and followed her own epistle at once, arriving just as the last

round, fat, rosy, bewitching, as a child, and only a child, can be, the poor spinster's repressed affection, her denied maternity, her love of beauty-a secret to herself-and her protecting instinct, all

er's.

"Tis a mite too far to the left, Aunt Beulah; but I guess I can fix it.”

"You let her take it," said Mrs. Smith. 'She's a real good hand at millinery; she made her own hat, and Janey's too. I should hate to have her put her hand to that bunnit if she wa'n't, for it's real pretty-'specially for a place like Dorset to get up.'

"Lay it off on the table, Aunt Beulah. I'm going up stairs to make my bed, and I'll fetch my work-basket down, and fix that bow straight in a jiffy."

blossomed for this baby, who stormed or smiled at her according to the caprice of the hour, but was equally lovely in the old lady's eyes whether she smiled or stormed. If Janey said, "Tum !" in her imperative way, Miss Beulah came, whether her hands were in the wash-tub or the bread-tray. Janey ran riot over her most cherished customs, and while she did not hesitate to scold or even slap Jack harshly for his derelictions, she had an excuse always ready for Janey's worst sins, and a kiss instead of a blow for her wildest exploits of mischief. Jack hated the old "Well, I must go up too," said Mrs. aunty as much as he feared her tongue Smith, and followed Sarah out of the and hand, and this only made matters room; but Miss Beulah, though duty callworse, for he felt a certain right to tor-ed her too, in the imperative shape of a ment her that would not have been considered a right had he felt instead any shame for abusing her kindness; but a soft answer from her never turned away his wrath, or this tale of woe about her bonnet had never been told.

There had been long delay concerning that article; the bleacher had been slow, and the presser impracticable; it had been sent back once to be reshaped, and then the lavender ribbon had proved of scant measure, and had to be matched; but at last, one hot day in May, Nanny brought the queer old bandbox home from Miss Beers's, and Aunt Beulah held up her head-gear to be commented on. It was really a very good-looking bonnet; the firm satin ribbon was a pleasant tint, and contrasted well with the pale color of the Leghorn, and a judicious use of black lace gave it an air of sobriety and elegance combined, which pleased Miss Beulah's eye, and even moved Mrs. Smith to express approbation.

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batch of bread waiting to be moulded up, lingered a little longer, poising the bonnet on her hand, holding it off to get a distant view, turning it from side to side, and, in short, behaving exactly as younger and prettier women do over a new hat, even when it is a miracle of art from Paris, instead of a revamped Leghorn from a country shop.

She laid it down, with a long breath of content, for taste and economy had done their best for her; and then she too left the room, never perceiving that Jack and Janey had been all the time deeply engaged under the great old-fashioned breakfast table, silently ripping up a new doll to see what was inside it-silently, because they had an inward consciousness that it was mischief they were about, and Jack, at least, did not want to be interrupted till he was through. But he had not been too busy to hear and understand that Aunt Beulah was pleased, and still smarting from the switch with which she had whipped his shoulders that very morning for putting the cat into the cistern, he saw an opportunity for revenge before his eyes: he would hide this precious bonnet so Aunt Beulah could never find it again. How to do this and not be found out was a problem to be considered; but mischief is quick-witted. There stood in the window a large rocking-chair, well stuffed under its chintz cover, and holding a plump soft feather cushion so big it fairly overflowed the seat. Under this cushion he was sure nobody would think of looking; and to save himself from consequences, he resolved to make Janey a cat's-paw; so he led her up to the table, made her lift the precious hat and deposit Sarah's eye was truer than her moth- it under the cushion, which he raised for

"Well, I'm free to own it suits me,' said the old lady, eying the glass with her head a little on one side, as a bird eyes a worm. "It's neat, and it's becomin', as fur as a bunnit can be said to be becomin' to an old woman-though I ain't really to call old: Mary Jane Beers is older than me, and she ain't but seventy-three-jest as spry as a lark, too. Yes; I like the bunnit; but it doos-sort of-seem-as though that there bow wa'n't really in the middle of it. What do you think, 'Lizy?"

"I don't see but what it's straight, Aunt Beulah."

""Tain't," said the spinster, firmly. "Sary, you look at it."

the purpose; then carefully dropping the | silk to match, and scrupulous care.
frill, he tugged Janey, unwilling, but
scared and silent, out into the yard, and
impressing on her infant mind with wild
threats of bears and guns that she must
never tell where the bonnet was, he con-
trived to interest her in a new play so in-
tensely that the bonnet went utterly into
oblivion, as far as she was concerned; and
when they were called in to dinner, and
she had taken her daily nap, Janey had
become as innocent of mischief in her own
memory as the dolly who lay all disem-
boweled and forlorn under the table.

When Sarah came down and did not find the bonnet, she concluded Aunt Beulah had put it away in her own room, for fear a sacrilegious fly or heedless speck of dust might do it harm; so she took up a bit of lace she was knitting, and went out into the porch, glad to get into a cool place, the day was so warm.

And when the bread was moulded up, Aunt Beulah came back, and not seeing her bonnet, supposed Sarah had taken it up stairs to change the bow. She was not an impatient woman, and the matter was not pressing, so she said nothing about the bonnet at dinner, but hurried over that meal in order to finish her baking. Mrs. Smith had not come down again, for a morning headache had so increased upon her she had lain down, so that no one disturbed the rocking-chair in which that bonnet lay hid till Mrs. Blake, the minister's wife, came in to make a call about four o'clock. She was a stout woman, and the walk had tired her. Aunt Beulah's hospitable instincts were roused by that red, weary face.

"You're dreadful warm, ain't you, Miss Blake?" said she. "It's an amazin' warm day for this time of year, and it's consider'ble more'n a hen-hop from your house up here. Lay your bunnit off, do, and set down in the rocker. I'll tell Nanny to fetch some shrub and water: our ras'berry shrub is good, if I do say it, and it's kep' over as good as new."

Aft

er the whole village news had been discussed, the state of religion lamented, and the short-comings of certain sisters who failed in attending prayer-meetings talked over-with the charitable admission, to be sure, that one had a young baby, and another a sprained ankle-Mrs. Blake rose to go, tied on her bonnet, and said goodby all round, quite as ignorant as her hosts of the remediless ruin she had done. It was tea-time now, and as they sat about the table, Sarah said, "I guess I'll fix your bonnet after tea, aunty; 'twon't take but a minute, and I'd rather do it while I recollect just where that bow goes."

"Why, I thought you had fixed it!" returned Miss Beulah.

"Well, I came right back to, but it wa'n't here. I thought you'd took it into your bedroom."

"I hain't touched it sence it lay right here on the table."

"I'll run up and ask ma; maybe she laid it by."

But Mrs. Smith had not been down stairs since she left Aunt Beulah with the bonnet in her hands; and now the old lady turned on Jack: "Have you ben and carried off my bunnit, you little besom ?” "I hain't touched your old bonnet," retorted Jack, with grand scorn.

"I don't believe he has," said Sarah; "for when I come down stairs and found it wa'n't here, I went out and set on the bench to the front door, and I heard him and Janey away off the other side of the yard playin', and you know they wa'n't in here when the bonnet come."

"Well, of course Janey hasn't seen it, if Jack hasn't; and if she had, the blessed child wouldn't have touched old aunty's bunnit for a dollar-would she, precious lamb?" and Aunt Beulah stroked the bright curls of her darling, who looked up into her face and laughed, while Jack grinned broadly between his bites of bread and butter, master of the situation, and full of sweet revenge. "And Nanny So Mrs. Blake removed her bonnet, and hain't seen it, I know," went on Aunt sank down on that inviting cushion with Beulah, "for she was along of me the all her weight, glad enough to rest, and whole enduring time; she set right to ignorant of the momentous consequences. a-parin' them Roxbury russets the minHer call was somewhat protracted. nit she fetched home the bunnit, and I there been any pins in that flattened Leg-kep' her on the tight jump ever sence, horn beneath her, she might have shortened her stay; but Miss Mary Jane Beers was conscientiously opposed to pins, and every lavender bow was sewed on with

Had

because it's bakin'-day, and there was a sight to do. But I'll ask her; 'tain't lost breath to ask, my mother used to say, and mabbe it's a gain."

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