little apparent to such minds is that which we term "the grotesque." There had been an expectation that he would dwell on his personal history and sufferings, and reveal the dark "secrets of the prisonhouse" whence he had escaped. But no such egotistical preface ushered in his theme. After a brief, fervent allusion of thankfulness for the rescue which had made his opportunity of addressing them, he passed to his text, which had no connecting link with such matters. It was, "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" And nothing could be more pathetic or impressive than his appeal to "the hearts that fall asleep," to wake, bestir themselves, and devote their energies in good time to God; nothing more appalling than the picture he drew of "the time to come," when it should be "too late" for energy; too late for repentance; when the sluggish heart might "sleep on and take its rest," God and good angels departing from it for ever! The divergence from his actual argument was in the occasion he took to lay stress on the scene in which this text of warning had first been given in the garden the garden where Christ habitually walked with His disciples; and from thence he lectured discursively and vehemently in favour of open-air meetings and hill-preachings, and against all "enclosed and decorated places," and "idolatrous temples and such like," as sinful and offensive. He said Christ, who had taught in the Temple, was yet remembered best by the "Sermon on the Mount" and the Agony in the Garden; that He had preached "on the pathless shore, and on the rolling waves of the ever-restless sea, and in the sandy and unproductive desert, where the very bread and fishes that were to sustain life in his hearers had to be miraculously multiplied-so far away were they from human habitation and the help of man's work. Yea," he said, "the very law of God Himself was given to Moses on the bare mountain and out of a bushout of a bush-He spake in His thunders!'" 66 And so the gardens, and the wilds, and the bushes, and the hills, and the great gray old olive-trees, and the palms, whose gathered branches were scattered under Christ's feet, were dearer to God than any work or carving of man's hand, and more acceptable than all the painted playthings of his skill. And the use of such decorated and covered places as were now the sinful fashion, was calculated to corrupt the spiritual meaning of adoration, to teach men to pray only when they could do so softly and conveniently; to encourage mincing women in rich clothing to attend merely when it was not too cold, or too wet, or too windy, in their opinion, for indolent homage to their Maker. And then suddenly, as it were, carried away by his subject, he burst forth in a sort of rapture about prayers and burials at sea; and souls accepted "even on the bloodstained herbage of the battle-field;" and from the graphic image of sailors in an open boat at midnight, drifting away from their burning ship without food or compass, "relying on the Lord," he passed to the historic tradition of the night-service read by one army while the other was carousing, and the victory that followed; winding up all with a word-picture, as vivid as ever was painted, of a dying soldier left by unconscious comrades among a scattered heap of the moon-lighted slain, and saying his final prayer to God alone and unattended; "needing no temple but the starry vault of heaven open to his upturned eyes, and, after the great din of war, and the thrill of the trumpet, hearing no music but the wind soughing through the darkened trees - that plaintive monotone in the great hymn of life which for ever, and till this world shall shrivel like a scroll, goeth up from all things created to the Creator of all." And with this image and these words the musical and resounding voice died down into silence, and there was a slow dispersion of the crowd: young men and maidens, old men and crones, going dreamily away; children looking timidly about, as though Moses lived in those surrounding tufts of broom and heather; men in folded plaids and Hieland bonnets, pronouncing it a "varry grand discoorse," and Lady Clochnaben, with a grim, triumphant smile, standing still by the preacher's side, but not looking at him looking rather towards her son Lorimer, who had passed his arm through that of Sir Douglas preparatory to departure— and to the sinner of Torrieburn, who had not only dared to listen to a religious "discoorse,' but was now actually giving her opinion on it, in that loud jaunty manner which she adopted to show her independence. And Maggie's opinion was, that there were "ow'r muckle words for folk to follow," and that Mr Frere was, to her. thinking, like the pail o' milk gotten frae Leddy Grace, ane o' the black kye, that just aye frothit, and brimmit ow'r. And sae, my mon, dinna ye be dooncast, for your Sabbath discoorses are no that wear yfu', though whiles they mak' me a bit sleepy;" and she "I CANNOT help thinking it improbable," said Mr Heaton, diffidently, while still suppressing Maggie's hand, that this is Mr. Frere's first preaching. He has much eloquence and and much courage." "I entirely agree with you, Mr. Heaton; it is even impossible, in my opinion. The man is a very practised speaker; and I am tolerably sure that I have heard him before, years ago, somewhere abroad, though I cannot clearly call to mind where or when. I think he must be an Irishman. The style he has adopted, and his whole appearance, favour that supposition. I never heard a voice that ran up and down the gamut in that way that was not Irish, nor ever heard the same fluency in men of any other nation." "You must be mistaken, Mr. Boyd," said the voice of Alice Ross. "He told us himself that he was of a Shropshire family, and he is too young to have preached anywhere years ago, for he has not yet attained to his twenty-fifth birthday." The deliberate drawl with which Miss Ross always spoke was not quickened by any emotion in this little defence. On the contrary, there was something peculiarly slow and tight in her utterance of these sentences, as though she were strangling Lorimer's opinion in its cradle. But sharp gleams of indignation came from her eyes, like the electric sparks from Grimalkin's fur; brilliant, and equally evanescent. "Is Sister Ailie charmed with the new preacher?" said Sir Douglas, smiling. "He is just the sort of man to hit a lady's fancy. But, indeed," added he, earnestly, "I do wrong to utter a light word on the subject. He is a very remarkable young man, very remarkable; and I cannot doubt but that his best hopes will be fulfilled, and that he will, indeed, be most useful in his generation! Suffering is a good school. No one can look at him and not see that he has suffered much. I long to do him a kindness, if it were at all in my power. I hope to see much of him. It is not often one meets with such a man. As to Lorimer's idea of having seen him before, fancies of that sort come to us all; and about his age, with those beardless men it is very difficult to calculate; they constantly look either very much younger or very much older than they are. Take my arm, Ailie; you seem tired." And, while Saville Heaton and Lorimer walked on in front, talking eagerly together, Alice and stately Sir Douglas followed: sitting down now and then on the banks of heather, that Alice's fatigue might not be increased resting in the open air; far sweeter rest than ever is found on silken couch or cushioned fauteuil; the small streamlet bubbling and trickling down the hill, laughing its silver laugh amid the stones, and that and the "sough" among the incense-breathing pines making indeed a sweet chord in that hymn, — which Mr. Frere had impressed on Miss Ross's memory. And it was during this walk with her half-brother that Alice held with him a remarkable conversation-one that he could not forget, one which in after times the curl of a fern leaf, or the notes of the thrush's song, or the sight of a harebell among long dry grass, in short, the most trivial accidental things would bring back to him as if her words were but just spoken, and her pale irregular profile were still between him and the evening sky. For it was not often that Alice and Sir Douglas held long tête-à-tête colloquies. He was a busy landlord; an attached husband; a companionable friend to his male associates; a tolerably studious reader, though no bookworm. He had neither the time,-nor, if truth is to be spoken, the thought, to bestow on her. And "Ailie" knew it. She knew she was the last and the least of his thoughts, kindly as he was; and therefore she made the most of her rare opportunities when she got them. I wonder if women who are "first objects" in some large and happy home circle, - or even "first objects" to the objects they themselves love, ever ruminate over the condition of one who is nobody's first object. How lone in the midst of company such a one must feel! What silence must lie under all their talking and laughing! What strange disruption from the linked chain that holds all the rest together! What exile, though ever present! What starvation of soul, in the midst of all those great shares of love meted out around her! | Ailie was not social by nature; nor lov ing; nor yearning for love: but she was conscious of loneliness, and resented the pain. With a skill of which she only had the mastery, she led, little by little, back to that implication of being "charmed" by James Frere which her half-brother had lightly passed over, fearing to wound even by that gentle jest. You could never know how Ailie managed this sort of thing. She had some private Ariadne's clue; by means of which, if she wished to escape from discussion of a subject, pursue it as you would, she was out through the labyrinth where you remained, and free in space. If, on the other hand, you desired to avoid touching some topic of risk and discomfort, it was in vain you retreated from it. Through the intricate passages of thought, into your very heart of hearts, came Ailie and her clue, and sat down victor over your intended privacy. How she crept back, softly and soundlessly, along the parapet, and up the roof, and in at the window of Sir Douglas's thoughts, and recommenced a little discussion and defence, respecting the possibility of her being "charmed" by one "so much a stranger as Mr. James Frere, the warmhearted soldier could not have told; but he remembered for ever the singular wind-up of Ailie's denials of such a possibility. kin love, there need be none of all that. The tone was so grave and sad; the slender form sat so stiff and still; the eyes, though wistful, were so without the expectation or possibility of tears; it was all so unlike either girlish sentimentality or passionate woman's epanchement, that it was difficult to know how to take, or how to answer it. Difficult, at least, to Sir Douglas. "Not only," she said, "I do not think that I should be easily charmed by a stranger (after all—lone as my life has been- And, as the echo of all she said, rolled I have, of course, had my opportunities, after the spoken sentences from his ear and can test myself in that); but I am into his easy heart, he thought with what just incapable of conceiving those romantic touching innocence his poor little lonely loves and nonsenses that I read of in books, half-sister spoke of love and being charmed, and hear of; and they just go by like a as a thing she had heard of, read of, sung false dream! It well may be because I old ballads about, but of which she had no have been so lonely, but to my thinking personal experience- how her one sole there can be no love, no tie, like love and notion was kith-and-kin love, - which was tie of kith and kin. Do you not think ". to be her all in all, and he was greatly and here she turned slowly round, and moved! He folded Alice in his arms as looked up wistfully in her half-brother's they rose to continue their walk homewards, face-"do you not think that, where there and then he said, "My dear little wois to the making of us the very same flesh man, my poor Ailie, the natural life of your and blood and spirit, the tie must be sex is to be all in all to some true mate, and stronger for love? stronger than mere fancy, not to depend altogether on what you call or even approval, or attachment, that way kith and kin' love:- but of this be quite that the books put it? For love may sure, that you shall always find in me the change (and we read that too), and it may love of an own brother, not of a half-brothprove false (and there's many an old ballad er; you shall tell me your joys and sorrows, to that), and it is a jealous restless thing, and thoughts and feelings, as you have done by what I can make out (and I declare I this day; and when you are charmed' (as often think of it when I try to please Lady I can't help hoping for you, some day, Ailie), Ross, and try to imagine if I should object I'll love that man, if he is worthy of you, even to a sister being too much to a man and treats you tenderly, as your sweet nathat was all in all to me); but in kith-and-ture requires to be treated, as if he also was my born brother, and nearer my own soul than any one except my Kenneth of old boyish days." And so they walked home; very silent, both of them. Only, when they came in sight of the turrets of Glenrossie, Sir Douglas pointed up to her little nook with a kindly smile, and, pressing her slender passive hands in his own, said, - "You will never feel so lonely there again, will you? You will know some of my thoughts are always with you." And, when Ailie had lightly ascended that stair, and curled herself softly round in her causeuse (that chair so little resembling the prevailing pattern at Clachnaben), and flung round her shoulders an eider-down tippet to prevent taking cold after her walk, she felt That she had had a successful day's mousing. CHAPTER XXVII. PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. less, she was glad of her beautiful morning room. It was not its luxury that she en joyed, so much as its brightness, and the dear knowledge of all the tender fore thought its little details had proved. She never entered it without recollecting the glow of pleasure on her husband's handsome countenance, at her amazement and joy, when he ushered her into it the morning after her arrival. She saw it still, that vanished morning's light! The opening door the unexpected loveliness and his face, the face of her beloved, when, turning from the irradiated tout ensemble-pale green Aubusson carpets and curtains, wreathed with roses; glittering tables where stood crystal flower-vases, enamelled with his crest and her name; great golden herons with silver-fish in their beaks, making candelabra stands almost as tall as herself; and a crowd of minor objects, every one a thought of love; turning from all these, she thanked him with almost childish exclamations of delight, repeated with clasped hands, and again repeated more gravely, with deeper emotions of gratitude. She loved that happy room! And Sir Douglas loved it too, and stood at its threshold now, welcomed by the smile he knew so well, and which he thought the most lovely upon earth. For in nothing is there such a difference. There are women who smile only with their lips; and there are others whose eyes, and brow, and lips beam altogether with such a cordial glow of brightness, that it is difficult to believe an extra gleam of light does not fall at such times even upon their burnished hair. HONEST Sir Douglas went straight to his wife's apartment; a sunny sitting-room, still farther illumined for him by the smile of intense love and welcome which he knew he should meet whenever he opened the door. It had been furnished very gaily, and in somewhat foreign taste, in pursuance of orders sent to Glenrossie before the bride's arrival. Gertrude and he had talked together of the gloomy grandeur of some of the Scotch castles; the naked, barren, well-to-do-ish appearance given by slated roofs and stone walls in mearer Scotch That was the sort of smile Gertrude abodes; and the hungry, positive, prosaic, gave; tinged with a certain lingering shygardenless rows of small houses, that could ness, in spite of security and familiarity of not be called " cottages," in Scotch vil- love. In natures like hers, intense love is lages, that looked like pieces of uncomfort- always timid. able towns carted out into the country. Sir Douglas talked with her, and asked They had laughed together, as they sat tenderly of her health; for she had not among the orange-trees and roses of the been able to accompany them that after Villa Mandorlo, at Naples, over his warn- noon; and then he spoke of "Ailie," and ings and hopes that Gertrude would refrain earnestly pressed on Gertrude his own and command herself, and not behave like views of his half-sister's character and feelMary Queen of Scots, who is said to have ings; repeating, with a colour taken from burst into tears on arriving at the grim his own warmth of heart, the impression of gates of Holyrood, whither a group of un- her innocence, her reserve, her lonely kempt Shetland ponies had conveyed her and her attendant ladies. yearnings for kindred. "She requires, you see, my own Gertrude, to be drawn out, Gertrude loved her rough hill-pony, and to be encouraged; in fact, to be petted and her Scotch castle, and all things in Scot- made much of. I was much moved by what land. There was music for her in the very she said to-day-she so seldom speaks of accent of its warmhearted and energetic herself and her feelings. They are acute, people. Nor did she greatly care for the rely upon it; but she has never had componips and vanities of life. But, neverthe-panions, never had any one to confide in. I am sure, if you could once grow to be matter? Douglas wished his sister to be fond of her, you would possess her utmost petted-DOUGLAS wished it! love and confidence. She is diffident as to And with that last thought Gertrude her power of attracting, and very young of her age; it seems quite the heart of a young girl, though she has so much information and womanly sense. Pet her a little, Gertrude; pet her, my own dear wife!" And as the dressing-bell rang through the last words, Sir Douglas rose, and left the beautiful room, and the sweet surprised face, and departed to his own chamber. started up, and passed quickly into the inner dressing-room, where the maid and the peach-coloured gown were waiting; and had her hair coiled round very simply (there being such abridged dressing time), and clasped the collar of pearls round her white throat, just as Sir Douglas came to accompany her downstairs. Alice was already there; and Lorimer; and Mr. Saville Heaton, who had remained to dine. Lady Ross did not immediately betake herself to her toilette; though she was conscious of the vista (through another door And, even in the few minutes that interthat opened as the dressing-bell rang) of vened before the gray-headed old butler her maid moving in front of the looking- announced dinner, Gertrude began her glass, and of a pale peach-coloured silk" petting" of Alice. She glided towards hanging up ready to put on; a dress with her with a kindly smile, and asked if she which she always wore a necklace of a single row of Scotch pearls given by Sir Douglas. She did not begin to dress. She sat looking, rather abstractedly, at all the objects in her beautiful morning-room from which the rich twilight was now rapidly departing, for even that room, of course, must have its night and its hours of darkness. "Pet Alice!" Again and again she thought the words over, and the eager tender manner of Sir Douglas while urging it. had liked her walk, if she had liked the preaching of Mr. Frere, if she had been tired in the long ramble home? And, while her frank soft eyes questioned with her tongue, Alice gave a sidelong calculating glance; at Lady Ross's shoulder, at her necklace, at the graceful folds of her gown-anywhere but directly in her face. "She looked askance at Cristabel, Jesu Maria shield her well!" ner is so very, very much kinder to me than usual, even when we are all comfortable together. But do not try to make people kind to me. I am quite pleased and contented. Perhaps it might even offend. I should not like to seem troublesome." And while she looked askance, she calculatPet" Alice! The young wife strove to ed; and with so much quickness and inteldrive away little stinging haunting memo- ligence did she sum up all, that only in the ries of coldness, and slyness, and hardness, passing down the broad oaken stair to the and alien ways, which had seemed to her to stately dining-room she found time to say be component parts of her sister-in-law's to her half-brother, on whose arm she went character. Something very like a shudder into dinner-"I am sure you have been thrilled through Gertrude. Was he wrong? speaking of me to Lady Ross, her manCould Douglas be wrong? Had she herself been harsh in judgment? Could she judge well and wisely of a person who from childhood had been denied, what she herself from childhood had enjoyed, - tenderness, freedom of affection, frank and fearless expression of all passing thoughts? Lorimer Boyd, And then she sat down in her usual place, it was true, thought ill of Alice. He had between Douglas and Lorimer, her thin said she was "a creature full of harm." But still mouth looking as if silence was habiLorimer was cynical. Yes; lovable in him-tual to it. Only when Lady Ross tried to self; a true and faithful friend; but cynical talk a little more to her than usual, and more in his judgments of others. And not happy gaily and familiarly, she allowed a sort of in his home relations. What a mother! imperceptible shade of vexation and embarWhat a brother! Enough to sour any man's rassment to gather round it before she rejudgments. plied; and once, only once, she looked at Sir Douglas with a little vague dry smile and shrug of the shoulders, as much as to say, "This is your doing; I cannot help myself. I hope it will not make me a burden, or make them dislike me." "Pet Alice!" What was the use of arguing about that, in her own mind? Ought it not to be enough for her that Douglas wished it! If he brought her a toad, and begged her to keep it in her room and make a plaything of it, would she not do it? What had Alice's deserts to do with the But Sir Douglas's thoughts were much preoccupied. He was considering about his |