Then I told him my story, and we embraced one another, and were at peace.

While we yet sat in the holy "garden" and talked, our speech was broken by a heavy thundering sound which came from the overhanging hills. I looked up, and saw that a portion of the rock had loosened from its place, and was falling, bringing death in its passage, to the plain beneath. A moment more, and, shuddering, I saw that right in the path of this avalanche of doom lay sleeping a young mountaineer. It was Herman Foerster's son!

With the speed of thought I sprang up the crags, my feet sinking at each step. I reached the spot; I

shook him out of his sleep; but he clung to me, half bewildered still. It was too late. I heard the father's shriek; I saw Cyril's upturned face; and then the thunder rolled over us, stunning, deafening. It passed, and we were both alive.

Alive! but for how long? The ground had been torn from under us. We stood on a jutting precipice -a mere speck left between the perpendicular rock above and the yawning abyss below. Even this narrow spot of safety crumbled and quivered beneath our We were two, and there was room but for

feet.

one.

I paused. Revenge lay in my grasp. The grandson of Johann Foerster, the youth in whose veins ran my enemy's blood, was in my hands. Which should it belife or death? vengeance or self-sacrifice? Life or death, revenge or sacrifice!

VOL. I.

I

My choice was made. In one sigh of prayer I committed my soul to God; in one murmur I uttered the name of Lilias; then, with one farewell grasp of the boy's hand, I plunged into the awful void below.

I awoke. Oh, marvel beyond belief! I lay on the vessel's deck-I felt round my neck those dear soft arms. All had been a dream!

I heard the tender voice of my wife:

66

Wilfred, dearest, you have slept scarce an hour, and you wake, all calm, and so well!"

I leaned my head on her bosom, and our tears mingled together. Then I met the kind, half-melancholy gaze of the old German mystic. Lilias turned even from me to clasp his hand, and thank him.

He replied―

"Thank not me, but God!"

I spoke to him, the mistiness of my dream, which I knew was only a dream, struggling vainly with reality :

"Dear friend, stay with us, and let us be to you in the stead of all you have lost!"

But he only shook his head, and said meekly

"It is impossible! I have not yet found the Happy Isles!"

In our dear home-the home my wandering fancy pictured-I dwell with Lilias. The old house is musical with sweet young voices; baby footsteps patter, fairy-like, through its dim chambers. It is

indeed a haunted house-haunted by all good spirits of peace, and happiness, and love. Lilias and I look towards the future and smile; the shadows of death, and sickness, and sorrow, have passed from us, and we shall grow old among our children's children.

Yet never, while life lasts, shall we altogether lose the memory of that strange dream of mine.

THE LAST OF THE RUTHVENS.

PART I.

"DAVIE CALDERWOOD! worthy tutor and master!— Davie Calderwood!"-The old man made no answer to the call, which he scarce seemed even to hear. He sat not far from the shadow of his college walls, watching the little silvery ripples of the Cam. His doctor's robes hid a homely dress of gray; his large feet, dangling over the river bank, were clumsily shod, and his white close-cropped hair gave him a Puritanical look, when compared with the cavalier air of the two youths who stood behind him.

"Davie Calderwood-wake up, man! News!great news! And from Scotland!" added the elder lad in a cautious whisper.

It pierced the torpor of the old man: he started up with trembling eagerness.

"Eh, my dear bairn!-I mean my lord-my Lord Gowrie !"

"Hush!" said the youth bitterly; "let not the birds of the air carry that sound. Was it not crushed out of the earth a year ago? Call me William Ruthven, or else plain William, till with my good sword I win back my title and my father's name."

"Willie-Willie!" murmured the younger brother in anxious warning.

"He's feared

wee Patrick!" laughed William Ruthven. "He thinks that walls have ears, and rivers tongues, and that every idle word I say will go with speed to the vain, withered old hag in London, or to daft King Jamie in Edinburgh! He thinks he shall yet see brother Willie's love-locks floating from the top of the Tolbooth beside those of winsome Aleck and noble John."

The elder youth spoke in that bitter jesting tone used to hide keenest suffering; but the younger one, a slight delicate boy of nineteen, clung to his brother's arm, and burst into tears.

"My lord," said Master David Calderwood, "ye suld be mair tender o' the lad-your ae brother-your mother's youngest bairn! Ye speak too lightly o' things awfu' to tell of—awfu' to mind. Master Patrick," he added, laying his hand gently on the boy's shoulder, "ye are thinking of ilk puir bodie given to the fowls of the air and to the winds of heaven, at Stirling, Edinburgh, and Dundee; but ye forget that whiles man dishonours the helpless dust, evermair God keeps the soul. Therefore think ye thus o' your twa brothers-the bonnie Earl of Gowrie, and