shrilly.

Alexander?"
Her voice rose

"There's nae need for ye to keep your word, George," she said. There was a defiant ring in her voice, otherwise it was hard and expressionless. "I dinna want it."

“Lord's sake, dinna be sich a fule," gasped her mother. "Ye shouldna play wi' men. They are aye kittle, and ye nivver ken."

George stared good-humoredly; then he laughed. The idea seemed to him preposterous.

"Weel, weel, Joan, we winna quarrel; we'll fix the day instead."

"I'm no seeking to quarrel," re

"I had thocht o't," said George plied Joan doggedly, "an' I'm nae slowly.

"Had thocht o't!" repeated Mrs. MacLeod. This time she fairly sbrieked. "And ye sit there and say that to my face?"

joking."

66 Mercy!" breathed Mrs. MacLeod. She looked anxiously at her daughter, and repeated in a loud whisper, 'Dinna, I tell ye. He'll tak' ye at your word, maybe."

"I didna say I wisna still thinking o't," retorted George. The idea that Joan sat down. Her features had it was possible to break his word struck relaxed, but there was still an air of him tangibly for the first time. He determination about her. George fidgrepeated more firmly, "Na, I'll stick to my word."

66 Hoots," " said old Mrs. MacLeod, in a more modified key. "Then mebbe ye wad like to gie a little proof. Words are fine eneugh, but they winna marry Joan; and it's nae likely she'll ever hae anither chance.'

|eted uneasily. The old woman kept up a steady murmur of remonstrance.

"There's nae need to say more," said Joan sharply. "A'body mak's mistaks at times. George and I hae made een. I hae made up my mind noo, and George is free."

"And if he heeds a silly lass like you," put in her mother hastily, "he's a puir thing."

Then she began to cry, for George was silent.

"Mebbe ye dinna want her," she said suddenly, her tears vanishing. "Mebbe ye'd rather hae somebody else younger and bonnier? There's Janet McLaren; she'll be glad enough to tak' ye."

She spoke at George, but she glared at Joan. She felt rightly enough this was her biggest obstacle.

“If Joan's nae willin', I'm nae gaun to force her to it," he began slowly. "It's a' ower," said Joan. "There hisna been much, noo there's naething ava"."

Joan got her way. To George it was partly a relief. Joan found it made more difference in her life than she had imagined. She had thought she

Janet blushed and frowned.

would go back to the old placid life, and resume her normal condition, but

"I dinna ken," she said. "But he's

a' folk are sayin'."

Joan sighed. At the same time she felt that she would rather die than change the course of events by a single word or action. There are things in this world that have to be, that must exist, and we know it, and though we know it is in our power to change the surface of these things we dare not.

she discovered that this was not possi-aye comin' and comin', and he kens fat ble. Broken ends of life are not easily joined, and it began to dawn on her that there was a gap in her life. There was a restlessness and a nameless longing for something, an undefinable feeling that she had loved George, and had not known it till she lost him. It began to haunt her when she heard that George had taken her mother's chance advice about Janet McLaren. So every one said, at least, and Joan knew that, if it was true, life lay dreary before her.

"Deed, it's nae wunner he should be ta'en," said Mrs. MacLeod. "It's no that she's bounny. That aleen disna dee it, but she lats him see she thinks a hantle o' him. Noo it's a new goon, and syne it's a hat, and it's a' for him, and he kens it. Sich wicked extravagant folly. I wush, Joan, ye'd stir yoursel' and dee mair that wye. Ye micht get him back. The mull is worth his while. That wad aye coont agenst you lass's chances."

The nights turned frosty as the winter closed in. It seemed to her that the wind rose at night and moaned as it had never done before. The old weathercock creaked more fitfully, and the rats scampered about at nights. She heard above these sounds the rush of the little river, swollen by the rains and the melting of the snow up in the distant hills where it took its rise.

She looked out one night as she was going to bed. She shivered as a gust swept round the house. Then a silence came.

"It's a fearfu' night," she said hastily. "I hope nae one is oot in the

She was shutting the door when a sound struck her ear. It seemed a wail. She stood still to listen, but it did not come again. "Joan" it had seemed to her to come floating through the storm. For a long time she stood waiting apprehensively. Her heart beat at the unexplained feeling of suspense and fear.

Joan heeded none of it. She out-storm." wardly pursued her placid way. Inwardly she was consumed by a fire of jealousy. No one knew, and the days went on. The tale of the broken engagement was an old story, and the new one, though not openly announced, was accepted as a tacit fact by Joan and her mother. Janet McLaren admitted that George had not said anything about the wedding day.

"But I'm nae carin'," she said gaily. "I'm no prood to come after you, Joan, and I'll hae mair sense to keep him."

"There's naebody blamin' you for that," said Mrs. MacLeod.

She admired success.

"If it wis a human voice it'll cry again," she said, to still her own fears.

Nothing came. The wind swept round the gables with shrill moans and cries.

"It was the wind," she said, and she shut the door.

In the night she woke. The same "There's naebody could hae less sense of apprehension seized her, and a sense than Joan, unless mebbe it's feeling of dull reality came to her. George," she added, to keep the bal-"Joan !" the voice seemed to wail. It had a human ring about it, to her excited mind.

ance even.

Joan sat through these conversations quietly. Once she broke through her

reserve.

"Has George tell't you in words he voice that's crying. I couldna hear lo'es you

?" she asked Janet.

ony one in this storm."

She got up and dressed.

Her room | frae her sister's. She was drooned in the river. The path's aye slippy, and, beside, the auld bridge has gone.

was up-stairs, her mother slept in the box-bed built into the wall in the little kitchen. Softly and quietly she groped her way down, and got the lanthorn. She opened the door softly and stepped out. Her teeth chattered and her heart sank.

"I'm too late," she kept saying. Still she kept ou. The conviction was forced upon her that she had not been dreaming, that some one had sought her aid. She tramped up and down the path; the wind met her, and nearly whirled her off her feet. There was no sign of anything.

She had let it pass unheeded. Her rival was dead, drowned in the thirsty river beside the old mill-dam.

Neither woman spoke all that evening. Later on, her mother said simply:

66

She put her arms on the table, and laid her head on them.

"The bridge has gone,' ," she said "I'm glad ye didna try and win him suddenly, as a gleam of light showed back. Lass, it's a heavy hairt ye'd her a dark mass of woodwork which have had this nicht if ye'd done so.' had floated down the river. "They Eh, mither," said Joan, "it's aye said it wad the last five or sax heavier than ye ken." winters, and noo it's fairly gone." She lifted her voice and shouted. No answer came. Gradually her fears subsided. She even laughed at her own exaggerated fears. "I winna tell ony soul fat I hae deen this nicht," she said, as she shut the door and crept back to her room. She woke in the morning with a strange feeling of dread. By degrees the night's occurrence came back to her. Outside all was still and bright. She felt the same instinctive feeling that a tragedy had happened, which she had had it in her power to avert. She went about all day with a dull foreboding at her heart.

That afternoon she realized the truth. There was a tramp of feet past the window.

"Fat's yon?" asked Mrs. MacLeod "Rin oot and see, eagerly. "" Joan. Joan sat still and fixed. Her breath came in short little gasps.

"I canna, mither. Bide a wee." The old woman hobbled to the door and opened it.

"Fat's the stir ?" she called shrilly. George Alexander left the little group that were passing the "gale" end of the cottage.

"There's been an accident," he said solemnly. "Last nicht, after gloaming, Janet McLaren was coming hame

The days passed somehow. Joan carried the weight with her. She felt as if her life would never end. It seemed to her that the grass was scarcely green on Janet's grave when George Alexander asked her a second time to be his wife. It came about unexpectedly, and in the matter-of-fact way in which crises in people's lives usually do come.

Joan was seated in the fir wood, looking down on the hollow beneath, where the mill stood. A big heron sailed slowly down the valley; the bees hummed in the heather at her feet; a dragon-fly flitted about. The bracken had already begun to be tinted with yellow, though the summer was not yet over.

"Weel, Joan," said George Alexander. She started suddenly. "I was in yon field, and I watched you up the brae; I came after you."

The past months had told upon Joan. She had grey hairs, and there were little lines round her eyes. Her mouth had taken a little tremulous droop. Altogether there was more womanliness about her looks.

"We niver seem to meet noo," said George Alexander.

He was looking at her, curiously re

minded of the day he had first seen her in the harvest field.

"I hae long wished to see you," said Joan simply; "I hae something to tell ye - and I canna!" she almost wailed.

An inspiration seized George. He leaned forward.

"Are ye seeking to tell me ye liked me better than ye kenned?" he asked, smiling.

Joan drew back hastily.

"Na, na," she said, "onything but that. Lat her hae it a' still, George, for she's deid."

Then he gave a nervous sort of laugh.

"I wisna gaun to be peetied by a' body."

"Then she had nane o' your love," said Joan solemnly.

"Ye hiv it a', Joan, tho' I didna ken afore."

Joan put up her hand.
"George, dinna say that."

“But I maun; I love ye, Joan. Will ye be my wife ?"

"Niver, niver, George Alexander," she answered at length. "I couldna I should hear her voice crying 'Joan,'

"Fat div ye mean?" asked George and I wad feel I had stolen you frae stupidly.

her."

"That's nonsense," said the man sharply. "I niver lo'ed her."

"Then it's a' the worse," said Joan, with true woman's logic.

She felt that somehow reparation must be paid to the dead at what

"Puir thing!" said George pity- ever cost and sacrifice to the living. ingly. "Puir thing!"

In vain George reasoned, Joan kept to

This time he took one of Joan's cold, her point. unresisting hands.

"Ye couldna ken, Joan. And things are ta'en oot o' oor hands files."

It was George's first attempt at philosophy, and it did not soothe Joan. "And sae I hear her crying on me a' the time," she said simply, as if it was an ordinary fact she was stating.

"And ye hiv borne the weary weight a' the time, Joan, and tell't naebody?"

"Naebody," said Joan briefly. "I hae wushed to tell you, but I was feared ye'd cast it at me, and I couldna bear that, George."

"I couldna be happy, George. It wouldna be richt.”

He lost his temper at last.

"Weel, there's nae mair to be said." They rose up out of the heather. The sun had begun to go down behind the fir-trees. Joan gave a little shiver. It was not many weeks after this that George and she met again.

"I'm aff to Australia, Joan," he said sullenly.

Nothing had happened in the interval to shake the moral force of Joan's arguments. She started.

"Must ye gang, George?"

"I hae no richt to cast it at you, asked softly. Joan," said George solemnly.

she

George was still angry with her fool

"She was your sweethairt," said ish woman's insistence, but his wrath Joan.

She put her head down and moaned. "Na," said George solemnly, "I niver had ane. Nane, except yersel', Joan."

"Folk said you were hers," said Joan, lifting her head, "and ye were aye there."

suddenly melted. He looked at her
downcast eyes and trembling mouth.
"Not if ye bid me stay, Joan."

The river still flowed on in its old

course. The fir-trees stood straight and dark at the top of the brae. But the brae was ploughed up and grew

Somehow a little of the weary bur- golden corn, and the old mill-dam was den seemed lifted.

"Aye," said George.

filled with water instead of the tangle of reeds and flowers. And all day the

mill-wheel splashed cheerily round. | me to Highcliffe. I was unable to go, The ghost of Joan's past was laid, and unable to see her; but she sent me merged into the happiness of her life. books, flowers, notes-all I suppose "I aye said things were in the brought over from the castle by a speLord's hands,” said Mrs. MacLeod cial messenger. They were delivered piously. "And noo the mull is stairted unstamped, and with a large black seal. aince mair I ken it." She was, I remember, particularly anxious that I should see the library. This was in 1877. By and by, continuing ill at Bournemouth, I went to London and settled in for some homekeeping years of invalidism. And I suppose it was not till 1879, that, on receiving a message from her, I was able at last to go and make her ac

From Temple Bar. LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD. A SKETCH.

short stays in town, in the spring.

ACQUAINTANCESHIP is various, and the sudden turn of events may often make a slight friendship more pictur-quaintance personally during one of her esque than one of constant habit. Sometimes, indeed, it is the very fact She was at Claridge's Hotel, and the of meetings being few and far between huge, bare sitting-room to which I was that gives them shape and color. They conducted made a strange contrast to outline themselves in distance, and the fulness and comfort of my own take a deeper and more luminous dye. Such isolation was not needed to give form or tone to interviews with Lady Waterford; rather would constant meetings with her have given zest to every day. But perhaps it is because I saw her seldom, and in such contrasted scenes, that I retain my impressions of her so unmixed and so unique.

constantly inhabited rooms.
It was
like a long, empty stage, this double
sitting-room, which went right through
the hotel; a sort of ambassadorial sa-
loon with two writing-tables, one in
the middle of each apartment, holding
portfolios and tall candles; no furni-
ture but a few chairs and chintz sofas,
and these of that rather nondescript

I first heard much of her from Mrs. | period, the first age of hotels in LouSartoris, who had the faculty of mak-don.

room, thinking it the most desolate scene, like the décor of the last act of a French comedy in which the heroine has got to die, after writing some letter of penitence or farewell at one of the stage writing-tables; presently the further door opened, and as I stood up to meet her, Lady Waterford came towards me down the full length of the room.

ing interesting any personality she I sat some little time in the back described. And in this glorious personality she had full scope. I well remember looking at a drawing of Lady Waterford's with her, and being deeply stirred by its depth and power. She read me some letters of hers, full of sensibility and humor, and described her beauty, her wisdom, her genius, her loveliness of mind, in words I have often recollected since. Years after- I have never seen anything so majestic wards she wrote: "She was the most enchantingly beautiful woman I ever saw when she was young. I find again the innocence of her eyes."

1

It happened that on leaving Warsash, I was at Bournemouth during many weeks of illness, and Mrs. Sartoris then wrote to Lady Waterford, who invited

1 One gathers from Mr. Hare's "Story of Two

Noble Lives" that she was the real star of the

Eglinton tournament, eclipsing even Lady Seymour, though, as a girl, out of competition.

as her carriage; she was tall, rather short-waisted, with long limbs like a statue's. The placing of her head, the shape of it, the peculiar headdress of thick plaits which wreathed it and made a sort of halo at the back; the whole was different from any modern woman's style. It was Byzantine, classic, splendid. Boehm's statue of her at Highcliffe Castle

From loving hearts to one of love most worthy,