We stopped on our way at the little village of Rumson, to look at its graperies, nurseries, and greenhouses. Here we were greeted by the delicious odors of myriads of flowers, whose brilliant hues dazzled till we were glad to rest our eyes on the softer greens of the nurseries. We were told by one of the gardeners that their young trees and flowers were shipped to all parts of the Union. Following the turnpike over a level fertile country, crossing South Shrewsbury Bridge, we drove through Seabright-a picturesque fishing village by the sea, in striking contrast to the drowsy sister village by the river. Pausing a while, we watched a group of bronzed fishermen pushing a large boat laden with nets down the beach. In it was seated one young man holding his ready oars; just in time for a retreating breaker, another jumped in, and down they rode, and were lost to sight, re-appearing far out in smoother water. Others were engaged in hauling up boat-loads of fish, and all were busy.

Our road now followed a narrow strip of land between river and sea, along which, like beads, were strung cottages of every form and color, growing larger and more pretentious as we neared the Monmouth

ville, the goal of our pleasant journey, stopping before the "Sea-shore Cottage"a long, low, picturesque building surrounded by shrubbery, and mantled with clustering vines. A neat servant ushered us into a parlor whose quiet elegance could not fail to strike one pleasantly.

The lady superintendent received us kindly, explaining the objects of the "Seashore Cottage," adding that although it was originally established in order that the "young needle-women of New York" might spend a week or two by the seaside at a cost within their means, numbers of worthy young women of other professions and small means had been admitted, the house being full from the beginning to the end of the season.

Returning to Seabright, we gave ourselves up to a delicious idleness, boating, bathing, fishing, or dreaming away the golden hours, as the fancy seized us. One evening we floated on the river. another we "tripped it on the light fantastic toe" to the merry band at the Pavilion. One day we tumbled and frolicked in the ocean surf; another we swam in the stiller waters of the river. week we banqueted on blue-fish broiled on shingles by the beach-side; another we yachted it down the Shrewsbury, eating oysters at Pleasure Bay. We lived in Lotos-land, and watching the rainbows on the sun-lit surf, forgot our country. till one day, when the leaves began to "redden to their fall," we turned our faces homeward.

One

Coming is better than going;

But never was queen so grand As I, while I watch him blowing Away from the lazy land. I have wedded an ocean-rover, And with him I own the sea; Yet over the waves come over, And anchor, my lad, by me.

Hark to his billowy laughter,

Blithe on the homeward tide! Hark to it, heart! up and after; Off to the harbor-side; Down through the rosemary hollow And over the sand-hills, light And swift as a sea-bird, follow; And ho! for a sail in sight!

CHAPTER V.

A BRAVE CAREER.

UT when we got on deck the next

testable person who was about to break in upon our peace (there was small chance that our faithful Angus Sutherland might encounter the snake in this summer paradise, and trample on him, and pitch him out; for this easy way of getting rid of disagreeable folk is not permitted in the Highlands nowadays), as we looked on the beautiful bay shining all around us.

"Dear me!" said Denny-mains, "if Tom Galbraith could only see that now! It is a great peety he has never been to this coast. I'm thinking I must write to him." The Laird did not remember that we had an artist on board-one who, if she was not so great an artist as Mr. Galbraith, had at least exhibited one or two small landscapes in oil at the Royal

Academy. But then the Academicians, though they might dread the contrast between their own work and that of Tom Galbraith, could have no fear of Mary Avon.

And even Mr. Galbraith himself might have been puzzled to find among his pigments any equivalent for the rare and clear colors of this morning scene as now we sailed away from Bunessan with a light top-sail breeze. How blue the day was-blue skies, blue seas, a faint transparent blue along the cliffs of Bourg and Gribun, a darker blue where the far Ru-Treshanish ran out into the sea, a shadow of blue to mark where the caves of Staffa retreated from the surface of the sun-brown rocks. And here, nearer at hand, the warmer colors of the shore-the soft, velvety olive-greens of the moss and breckan; the splashes of lilac where the rocks were bare of herbage; the tender sunny reds where the granite promontories ran out to the sea; the beautiful cream-whites of the sandy bays! Here, too, are the islands again as we get out into the open-Gometra, with its

Kenneth, where the seals show their shining black heads among the shallows; and Erisgeir and Colonsay, where the skarts alight to dry their wings on the rocks; and Staffa, and Lunga, and the Dutchman, lying peaceful enough now on the calm blue seas. We have time to look at them, for the wind is slight, and the broad-beamed White Dove is not a quick sailer in a light breeze. The best part of the forenoon is over before we find ourselves opposite to the gleaming white sands of the northern bays of Iona.

"But surely both of us together will be able to make him stay longer than ten days," says the elder of the two women to the younger-and you may be sure she was not speaking of East Wind.

Mary Avon looks up with a start; then looks down again-perhaps with the least touch of color in her face-as she says, hurriedly, "Oh, I think you will. He is your friend. As for me-you see-I

I scarcely know him."

"Oh, Mary!" says the other, reproachfully. 'You have been meeting him constantly all these two months: you must know him better than any of us. I am sure I wish he was on board now-he could tell us all about the geology of the islands, and what not. It will be delightful to have somebody on board who knows something."

Such is the gratitude of women!—and the Laird had just been describing to her some further points of the famous heresy

"But," she says, warmly, "if the government had any sense, that is just the sort of man they would put in a position to go on with his invaluable work. And Oxford and Cambridge, with all their wealth, they scarcely even recognize the noblest profession that a man can devote himself to-when even the poor Scotch universities and the universities all over Europe have always had their medical and scientific chairs. I think it is perfectly disgraceful.”

Since when had she become so strenuous an advocate of the endowment of research?

"Why, look at Dr. Sutherland-when he is burning to get on with his own proper work, when his name is beginning to be known all over Europe he has to fritter away his time in editing a scientific magazine and in those hospital lectures. And that, I suppose, is barely enough to live on. But I know," she says, with decision, "that in spite of every thing-I know that before he is five-and-thirty, he

"Oh, exceedingly-exceedingly!" says the other, who, if she does not know Angus Sutherland, seems to have picked up some information about him somehow. "You can not imagine how he has been looking forward to sailing with you; he has scarcely had any holiday for years."

"Then he must stay longer than ten days," says the elder woman; adding, with a smile, “you know, Mary, it is not the number of his patients that will hurry him back to London."

"Oh, but I assure you," says Miss Avon, seriously, that he is not at all anxious to have many patients-as yet. Oh no -I never knew any one who was so indifferent about money. I know he would live on bread and water-if that were necessary--to go on with his researches. He told me himself that all the time he was at Leipsic his expenses were never more than £1 a week."

She seemed to know a good deal about the circumstances of this young F.R.S.

"Look at what he has done with those anæsthetics," continues Miss Avon. "Isn't it better to find out something that does good to the whole world than give yourself up to making money by wheedling a lot of old women?"

tion."

Here, indeed, is a brave career for the Scotch student: can not one complete the sketch as it roughly exists in the minds of those two women?

At twenty-one, B. M. of Edinburgh.
At twenty-six, F.R.S.

At thirty, Professor of Biology at Oxford: the chair founded through the intercession of the women of Great Britain. At thirty-five, President of the British Association.

At forty, a baronetcy, for further discoveries in the region of anaesthetics.

At forty-five, consulting physician to half the gouty gentlemen of England, and amassing an immense fortune. At fifty

Weil, at fifty, is it not time that "the poor Scotch student," now become great and famous and wealthy, should look around for some beautiful princess to share his high estate with him? He has not had time before to think of such matters. But what is this now? Is it that microscopes and test-tubes have dimmed his eyes? Is it that honors and responsibilities have silvered his hair? Or is the drinking deep of the Pactolus stream a deadly poison? There is no beautiful princess awaiting him any where. He is

a beautiful princess-beautiful-souled and

awaiting him among the western seas; but that time is over and gone many a year ago. The opportunity has passed. Ambition called him away, and he left her; and the last he saw of her was when he bade good-by to the White Dove.

What have we to do with these idle dreams? We are getting within sight of Iona village now; and the sun is shining on the green shores, and on the ruins of the old cathedral, and on that white house just above the corn field.* And as there is no good anchorage about the island, we have to make in for a little creek on the Mull side of the Sound, called Polterriv, or the Bull-hole; and this creek is narrow, tortuous, and shallow; and a yacht drawing eight feet of water has to be guided with some circumspection, especially if you go up to the inner harbor above the rock called the Little Bull. And so we make inquiries of John of Skye, who has not been with us here before. It is even hinted that if he is not quite sure of the channel, we might send the gig over to Iona for John Macdonald, who is an excellent pilot.

"John Macdonald!" exclaims John of Skye, whose professional pride has been wounded. "Will John Macdonald be doing any thing more than I wass do myself in the Bull-hole-ay, last yearlast year I will tek my own smack out of the Bull-hole at the norse end, and ferry near low water too; and her deep-loaded. Oh yes, I will be knowing the Bull-hole this many a year.”

And John of Skye is as good as his word. Favored by a flood-tide, we steal gently into the unfrequented creek, behind the great rocks of red granite; and so extraordinarily clear is the water that, standing upright on the deck, we can see the white sand of the bottom, with shoals of young saithe darting this way and that. And then just as we get opposite an opening in the rocks, through which we can descry the northern shores of Iona, and above those the blue peak of the Dutchman, away goes the anchor with a short. quick rush; her head swings round to meet the tide; the White Dove is safe from all the winds that blow. Now low

How do you do, captain? And is the deck house still in the garden, and do you sleep on board when you sleep ashore? And the charming young hostess, too: has she got a spirit license yet from the Duke? We wave a handkerchief to you!

"I am really afraid to begin," Mary Avon says, as we remonstrate with her for not having touched a color-tube since she started. Besides, you know, I scarcely look on it that we have really set out yet. This is only a sort of shaking ourselves into our places; I am only getting accustomed to the ways of our cabin now. I shall scarcely consider that we have started on our real voyaging until—”

Oh yes, we know very well. Until we have got Angus Sutherland on board. But what she really said was, after slight hesitation:

"-until we set out for the Northern Hebrides."

"Ay, it's a good thing to feel nervous about beginning," says the Laird, as the long sweep of the four oars brings us nearer and nearer to the Iona shores. "I have often heard Tom Galbraith say that to the younger men. He says if a young

man is overconfident he'll come to nothing. But there was a good one I once heard Galbraith tell about a young man that was pentin at Tarbert-that's Tarbert on Loch Fyne, Miss Avon. Ay, well, he was pentin away, and he was putting in the young lass of the house as a fisherlass; and he asked her if she could not get a creel to strap on her back-as a background for her head, ye know. Well, says she-"

Here the fierce humor of the story began to bubble up in the Laird's blue-gray eyes. We were all half laughing already. It was impossible to resist the glow of delight on the Laird's face.

"Says she just as pat as ninepencesays she, 'It's your ain head that wants a creel!'"

The explosion was inevitable. The roar of laughter at this good one was so infectious that a subdued smile played over the rugged features of John of Skye. "It's your ain head that wants a creel." The Laird laughed, and laughed again, until the last desperately suppressed sounds were something like kee! kee! kee! Even Mary Avon pretended to understand.

"There was a real good one," says he, obviously overjoyed to have so appreciative an audience, that I mind of reading in the Dean's Reminiscences. It was about an old leddy in Edinburgh who met in a shop a young officer she had seen before. He was a tall young man, and she eyed