lashes blacker than Robert's own, and all | dow-it was my father's window thenthe ripeness of her lips and throat showing in the sunlight. He took a crown-piece from his pocket, passed through the brown arms still arched to throw him, and pressed the coin between her fingers as, well apart, they clasped her burden. With that he looked through the warm haze of her face into her eyes, and held them for a second, without saying a word, so far as they could see. I suppose she did not hate him, even then, nor had cause to. But it has always seemed to me that a woman's selfprotection is a cruel business at the best. The ammunition of her defence differs from that of men as dynamite differs from gunpowder; his leaving no more than the dirt of battle at the most; hers often shattering herself. She dropped her load; he could see a squall of anger sweep across her face; and even as he thought it wonderful that change in her the silverpiece stung him, flung full on his cheek with all the force of the country girl's wrath. Stooping to hide the shot of pain in his eyes, he picked up the crown, to have pocketed it with a compliment, no doubt; but Kate, when he looked for her, was striding across the field to Row'tilly. He spun the coin high in the air-an action like a sneer and with his face burning round the inflamed spot, as it seemed to the workers, he turned on his heel to Denbrae. Among the farm servants it was the talk of days how the "maister's dochter" had served young Learmont; and many, when they passed him on the road, were curious enough to hold to the right and look for the red spot still visible on his left cheek. By the time the tale was old on their lips, Robert had held Kate in his arms and she had kissed that scar. How, when, where they met, no one ever told me, and I believe no one ever knew. But there was no lack of occasion, with the harvest carried on under the moon, and Kate going to and fro between the farmhouse and the field, and Robert with such a way with women, as every one knew. He was back again in spring; and in the summer -a flying visit (to see Kate, he said) before he set out for the front; and Kate the proud, reticent girl whom Tam Sturrock worshipped from afar yielded to him with the wonderful yielding of women. II. I WELL remember that Sunday morning when Michael Tosh passed the win and caused us to rise all together, knowing that something very important must account for such a precise man going out of his order. Mr. Tosh shook hands with my father first, as his way was ever. There were some folks who said that my mother, being Mr. Tosh's sister, might have looked higher than plain Mr. Shirra in the excise. Mr. Tosh never showed that that was in his mind, although I believe it was there. Being a proud man, with a shrewd eye, he knew that that kind of pride looked best when it was saddled and ridden. That morning he said to me, passing over these civilities with something of perfunctoriness, "Put on your shoes, David. I'll want ye this forenoon. It's an errand o' necessity if not o' mercy," he said, turning to my father, who was very particular in the ways of keeping the Sabbath, "an' the kirk maun hang in the head o't, this day." When we got out on the road, "There's news come with the coach this morning that Robert Learmont's killed at the Redan," he said. "The guard's blowing it about like a blast on his tooter, an' we maun break it up at Hawfield before it gets there on coarse tongues." It was easy to see that it was against the grain in him, this errand, and that my company was just for company's sake. It's a sore business dealing out fortune's blows, even if you know your stroke will be lighter than most. Old Michael knew what the blow would be to the woman the roots of whose life were dug into that body that maybe by this time was long shuffled underground. But he was not a man to shirk his duty. We reached Denbrae when the bells were ringing in, and saw the folks popping into the kirk, for all the world like rabbits into their burrows. We had passed into the Hawfield road when the Hawfield dogcart came rattling along it, and Mathie Oliver, the coachman, looking in a terrible way. "Good-morning, Matthew," said Mr. Tosh, holding up his hand no higher than his waist-belt, as if that was high enough to stop a coachman. But Mathie's words tossed up the old man's gentleness as you've seen wind toss the fallen leaves. "Heist ye, Mister Tosh," said he. "I'm awa' for the doctor. There's news come o' young Robert's death in the Crimee, and the auld lady is taking on something awfu”.” I could see disgust at the turn of affairs | gossiping people, and were even more so creeping up to Mr. Tosh's eyes like a sickness. "Who-who was it carried the news to Hawfield?" he asked. "Mister Hendry Anderson cam running out an hour syne, and tell't 's "Oh, yes! Matthew Oliver," replied Mr. Tosh, very precisely, turning on his heel. "Oh, yes! Hairy Anderson was always such a particular demned ass!" With that he set his feet again into the Riverton road, leaving me to follow. And at the bend where the Row'tilly pathway runs into it, I could see Kate Coulter hurrying down it, late for the kirk. I looked to have walked the few steps to the kirkgate with her. Most lads round about were drawn to the Row'tilly girl, less for her beauty than because of her holding back, proud ways; but Kate hung in the road because she saw my company, I said to myself, with what would have been vanity had I believed it. And Michael Tosh calling me alongside of him, I fell into his short steps again, and so went home thinking of how the day's business had fallen out, and never dreaming that I was turning my back on the end of it. But it was so, as you shall hear presently. So far, I have told what I can vouch for with my own eyes and ears. The rest is a tale patched like these newfangled counterpanes; pieced out of the odds and ends of folk's talk, and remnants of gossip, without any very certain pattern, but with the suggestion of many. There's a very brisk lad that brings his paint-box down the burnside every summer, who says that that's the kernel of art, and calls himself a Whistlerite, whatever that may be. Perhaps it pleases some folk to pay their money and take their choice. For my part I would not buy a picture like a pig in a pock, and have one man say it was the sun that hung in the heaven, and another that it was the moon; or worse, as I have seen happen with this young birkie's own canvases, have whole five men examine it, and not one of them with more than an opinion which was the right end on. I have nothing to do with art, which seems to me a highfalutin' title taken by a thing that's not very sure of its own merit. I have only a story to tell as plainly as it is to be known on this side of the grave. And, if, when you have heard them, you wonder how so many things could come within one man's ken, remember I have attended at many deathbeds. Besides, we are a simple, in those days; so that when all had come and gone, many remembered what Learmont said, and what Kate, and what Tam Sturrock; and told the sayings again. When the congregation gathered in Denbrae kirkyard for the afternoon service the bits of the morning's news were put together. Some declared that Mrs. Learmont had it by word of mouth passed on from the coast by the coach, others that it came by letter. Both were right. We know the amount of truth that was in the word-o'-mouth story, and Mrs. Learmont did get a letter. But of all the intricate things in life this is the saddest: that it is not the truth of a thing that is going to be of much use to you, but the knowing it true. The Denbrae gossips had learned nothing when they had not learned that the word in the letter cancelled Henry Anderson's, and told how Robert Learmont had a wound indeed, but not a deadly one. We found that out when it was too late. What we shall never find out (although I have no doubt on the point) is, when Mrs. Learmont learned it; whether or not she had read that letter before she saw Kate. It was the habit of the Row'tilly family to spend the interval between sermons at Dave Sturrock's, supping their broth there instead of at the farm; a good arrangement for people who had no leisure for visiting on week-days. It gave time for Kate and her mother to inspect Nell's bairn, and for Row'tilly to advise Dave on his game bantams -occupations full of digestive restfulness and not likely to drive away the afternoon's sleep. This day, however, Mr. Coulter and his wife being absent, Dave got through his pipe sooner than usual; and he and Nell and Kate arrived at the kirk in plenty of time to join the groups that gathered to talk of crops and cattle, and the dead on whose flat gravestones they were sitting. Tam Sturrock was never behind in seeing Kate's arrival ; and it was he who told her the news of Robert's death. "Wha had ye this from?" she said quietly. She was gone all pale below her dark skin, as Tam might have seen if he had not been the honestest man that ever stepped, with the dullest eye that ever worked in an honest man's face. He was not like his brother Dave, who was born pawky. "It was Jeems Patton's wife tell'd me," he said; "and she got it from her guid man, who met Sandy Milne as he was coming from mending the coke-fire at his maut barns." "I daursay that's enough voucher for the truth o't," said Kate, the catch in her throat making a chirrup in her voice, which Tam, with the pitiful conceit of men, mistook for the mirth of a woman, who is not ill-pleased to be talking to a man. With that she walked into the kirk and forward to the Row'tilly pew. Denbrae church is old and dingy, with very deep seats, from which to see the preacher is to strain the neck over the book-boards. The occupants of neighboring pews are hid from one another. Tam, who sat with his brother at the back of the kirka position full of all advantage, except that of having a sight of the clock, whose old, yellow face beamed from the front of the gallery benignant with hope -gazed at the Bibles before him as if at any moment they might fade from sight and display to his rapturous eyes the flower in Kate's bonnet. That was all of her that peeped above the Row'tilly pew. Jean's bonnet-crown was never so fascinating as on that day; and so Tam thought as the preacher thumped his Bible in the interests of an overruling Providence. That is a doctrine the truth of which varies a great deal with how the world is using the hearer of it. Tam, if he heard it at all, was doubtless seeing in the two miles of hill and bracken that was Kate's road home, and in the want of her father's and her mother's company, an illustration of it; and wondering if he had the courage to apply it. But the sermon was not finished when the gloaming clouded the little windows; and the minister, pausing, said, "It's time the upland folk were getting away home; it's falling dark." It was a usual enough intimation on winter Sunday afternoons; and scarce a sleeper was disturbed by the silence as Kate, and here and there a ploughman or a cottager from the hills, emerged from their pews. But Tam, his afternoon's ambitions at all the portholes of his sense, was for stealing out too, when Dave caught his coat-tails, and pulled him down. haste and the farmer's absence. They thought it strange, too, that the darkness should fall so quickly that they did not see her round the farther bend. But Kate never rounded it. She struck across country for Hawfield. She was still running when Rab Cuick saw her at the Silver Wood. So he said. He is a disinterested liar, I admit, and would have made her run although her walking would not have told against his own ends. But on this occasion I could well believe him. When Christian Baxter opened the Hawfield door to Kate, the hall clock was striking four, and before she had closed it she heard the far-off Denbrae bell sounding across the fields. Therefore the girl must have covered those two miles and three-quarters of field-ridge and stubble in less than half an hour. I have had dealings with Chris. tian Baxter since then, and have often probed her memory; but if there was anything more hidden there I never hit it. She let Kate in because there was urgency in her tones. She carried her to Mrs. Learmont's room, and Mrs. Learmont was as calm as a pie. These are Christian's own words; and she said, moreover, that for the hour the two women were together, although she was hovering in the neighboring room, she never heard a word raised higher than ordinarily, nor ever, even on the two occasions when she had to go in beside them, observed so much as a crack in Kate's voice. "They were sittin' close thegither, and Mrs. Learmont had the lassie's hand in hers. I tell ye Kate's hand that was as red as a haw looked white below thae black fing'rs. But it wasna' Kate Coulter I lot oot that night. It was a girl that wasn't going, but was being sent; it minded me o' the stories of folks that had seen a sicht." Mrs. Learmont's calmness would seem to show that she had read that letter. You may ask why, if that were so, she did not relieve the whole house with its message. I tell you she had no world outside of Robert; the rest was dirt. On the other hand, when Kate came in, all sick with fear, and hope, and shame, drawn to the only other heart in the world that beat to Robert's, why was not the later news, if Mrs. Learmont had it, clapped like a comfortable plaster to her sore? Bah! Why should I beat about the bush? I Clear of the village, Kate was running. have not a point of evidence to go to a The ploughmen in her wake on the Row-jury with. A sheriff would not listen to tilly road saw her run up the first brae, and said, "Has Row'tilly a cow in calf the now?" trying thus to account for the girl's "Sit quiet, ye nowt!" he whispered. "It's just the Row'tilly fowk." And he held him fast as Kate and his opportunity passed by. my story. Yet I know, as well as I know that from the time it flashed upon me I have looked on women differently, that "Dave." The voice was not so musical as when she was Nell Coulter. "Comin'," he replied, continuing his talk with Tam. 66 Man, Dave," Tam was saying, "I've felt lonesome sin' ye went and got merrit." "I believe't," replied Dave. "And that cannot be helpit." Mrs. Learmont damned her soul in that | against her husband's return, with similar hour for her son's sake. She may have fragrances that issued from every couthy had an inkling before that of what Kate fireside in the village. had to tell; she did not require it. Without that great love in her, her cunning and nimbleness of wits would have taken in at a flash what steadier people needed long looking for. Was there no great hate for the girl battened down under her hatches? Yet she sat there playing on Kate as on a harp with the most delicate touch possible; making believe that it was the woman in her that was drawn to the woman in the other; disparaging her color that she might exalt the sacrifice demanded from a girl of her husband's race; fanning the mad flame of Kate's resolve; never disturbing the girl's assurance of Robert's love, yet gently broaching it so that it leaked away. It was the sight of these black fingers on the honest brown, called up by Christian's words, that sent a suspicion through me that has been verified since then to my satisfaction at least, although, to be sure, some folks think otherwise. III. MEANWHILE the neighbors whom Kate had left behind, ceasing from their slumberous worship and tumbling out of church as from their beds, had never a thought of the life and honor hanging in the balance at Hawfield. Already Nell Sturrock was back in her own house; Dave and Tam, as was their wont, lingered at the end of the road. "I canna' think what they twa get to crack about," Nell said to herself. "They would stand a moon." But I dare say she could think very well; women are clever. The lawyer trade is a royal road to knowing them, and I tell you that most of them that I have met have the heels of a man in the conduct of affairs, any day. Depend upon it, a woman knows what happens to her when she marries. She may twirl a husband round her little finger. Nell did. I suppose if I denied ability to cite an instance nearer home, it would not be believed. No doubt she does it the more viciously because she knows quite well it does not entail any hold on his inclinations. When you see men very happy hobnobbing to gether, be it in clubs or at street corners, and yet going home to their wives, find what consolation you can in the thought that the grey mare is the better horse always. Nell opened her door, mixing the fragrance of the tea and bacon, prepared "No. It cannot be helpit," acquiesced Dave, with the gusto of conviction. "And I'se warrant Kate's the same without Nell?" Maybe." There was a pause; then Tam again, "What's to hinder me makin' up to Kate?" "Ha'e ye ing, Tam? "Huts!" said Tam with a great deal of spirit. "Nell was ready enough to tak' you." considered her worldly stand "Tam," replied Dave, stung with the truth, and finding it rather pleasant, "if I hadna' behaved myself at Row'tilly you wouldna' daur to show face there." All the world-all the world of Denbrae, that is knew how humbly Dave had mounted the Row'tilly road to woo Nell; and Tam acknowledged the fact, as Nell's voice sounded through the night once more. "Could she put in a word for me?" he said doubtfully, nodding in Nell's direc tion. Dave shook his head. "That would be asking a vote o' confidence," he said at length; and evidently he could not risk it. "Na, na, Tam, laad," he said; "we'll let sleepin' dowgs lie." "But tak' your will o't, Tam," he said at parting. "I'm no saying a word against naebody; but mind, it's the verra deevil when your wife casts her former estate in your teeth." That night Tam went up the Row'tilly road, whistling, Sabbath though it was, to keep his courage hot. When he reached the steading he saw a light in the byre, and, going inside, found Kate, as he had hoped, alone, milking her cows. She started to her feet when she saw him. "What brings you here, Tam Sturrock? Have you any ill word from Dave's folk?" she cried, with a frightened look. He had expected a mischievous glance, a saucy word; but when he shook his head, the scared, white face - Kate's face turned wearily away from him. -- "It's not with an ill word from Nell, but for a good word from you, I cam," he blurted out boldly. But Kate said not a word as, with her back to him, she continued with her milking. "Kate - Katie," he said, in desperation, fumbling with a paper in his hand, "I brought a bit o' poetry to you, Katie. I made it up in the kirk." When any Denbrae body tells the story of Kate Coulter he finishes here; as if it were "Puir lassie; and there's an end of't." But I recall the story because in course of time Robert Learmont came back to Hawfield. Tam Sturrock and John Coulter waited for a word with him. It would have been a hot one even if, as I contend, Robert Learmont could have I dare say he made it up quickly enough. It had no merit, and trash comes as read-pled an honest intention in the end; for ily as the words of genius. It is mediocrity that takes time. "I'll read it to you," he went on. "Ye'll not laugh at me, Kate?" Poor Tam! As Kate said nothing he drew nearer, and bending beside her at the lamp delivered himself of his doggerel: Denbrae lasses are plump and fair, And ilka ane has her billie, O But when he looked up, sheepishly, from "For your ain sake, for my sake, go away home," she cried; but, awed as he was, he would have put his arms around her. She started to her feet and threw him off, and would not have him near her. "Don't touch me; don't come near me," she sobbed out piteously, shrinking from him. Then, I believe, she felt that he guessed the shame that all too clearly that day had revealed to her. I know Tam better than you who know him only in love, which, whatever we may say, is not a condition to be proud of. I believe it of him that he was no tenderer, no sterner than the rest of us would have been. there is plenty room to be selfish in this world without reaching to the bounds of selfishness. But they never had that word. Mixed blood, like Learmont's, has no stamina; and after that wound Robert had to pass the short remainder of his days in warm countries. And this is what I know. He had not long returned when Mrs. Learmont had a tale to tell him, exultantly, cunningly; and when she finished he spoke a word, and the light faded from her eyes. It is true that at the end she was by his bedside. Nature knows her own business, and she would see to that. But from the time that word was spoken until the very end, there was little that was lovely passed between them. DAVID S. Meldrum. From The Liverpool Journal of Commerce. THE DRAINING OF THE ZUIDER ZEE. THE draining of the Zuider Zee is progressing with even better success than was expected - that is, the preliminary work of erecting a dam, for the actual draining comes after. It is strictly a war of revenge, for it is not very many centuries since the Zuider Zee was an inland "They all come with fine words. lake with a small outlet. The Dutch are, There's no poetry in the end of it," was therefore, recovering a province lost to the last thing he heard Kate say; and as their ancestors by the invasion of the sea. he listened to it, it seemed to him it was A good, solid, broad foundation has ala charge no son of Adam could plead ready been laid, extending from the north guiltless to. Standing there, his love upon point of north Holland across to the a broken wing, there stole into his un-island of Wieringen, and thence straight tutored, boyish mind as he has told me himself, some insight into the mystery of one bearing the sins of many. Then he stumbled down the Row'tilly road, his hope on the wane as Jupiter was in the sky before him. That night Dave and Tam were summoned from their beds to Row'tilly. From down in the valley dim figures with torches could be seen in the steading and among the uplands. By the grey light of the morning the brothers found the girl's body in the pond among the hills. across the Zee to the nearest point of the opposite coast of Friesland- a distance of eighteen miles only. It has been found that as the work proceeds the sea itself assists by depositing enormous quantities of sand and silt every tide on both the outside and inside of the dam, which is being gradually raised in its whole length simultaneously. When the project of draining the sea-- not a new one at alltook shape some forty years ago, the first idea was to join by dams the great islands of the Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, and |