shop. He was a man of about sixty-five, with one eye, a shock red wig, shaggy eyebrows, a portly person, and an air of ineffable conceit.

"What's your wull, lassie ?" he asked of Annie, for her youth and beauty struck him.

"Wi ye jist gie me an ounce o' yer best Scotch mixture, friend?" said Tibby, presenting her box. "I perceive yer a countryman o' mine, sae gie me the best, and dinna charge too dear."

"The best snuff for the best price-I mak na difference. Gentle or simple, I have but ain price for friends or foes. If I give an ounce o' snuff to ilka coontrymon, or selfstyled friend, their's wad be a sma' gain each, and mine a groot loss. I've a gude wife, and mony bairns, and times are heard wi' me in a foreign land, and I have kenned better days."

"Fra wha part o' Scotland do ye come, friend?" asked Tibby.

"I'd be after asking the same question o' yersel," said the canny Scotsman. "Ah!

that's a style o' snuff-box I ken weel. In my younger days, an auld lady, the aunt o' a bonny lassie I coorted, had jist such a ain. Puir lassie! I'd be glod to ken what is become o' her, and o' anither, a pridefu' crater. They were baith flames o' mine, and puing caps for me. I was a bonny Heeland officer then, and pretty, flirting Tibby Maxwell, and tragic, noble Grizzy Dooglas, were o'er the lugs in luve wi' me."

"Who are ye?" shrieked Tibby.

"Her Vandertonald, in Antwerp; in Scotland, they ca'ed me Donald o' the brae." "Donald o' the brae!" cried Tibby. "Donald o' the brae!" re-echoed Annie. "It canna be. If ye war Donald o' the brae, ye'd nae a forgotten Tibby Maxwell."

"Ah! ye' canna be Tibby Maxwell, else ye'd nae a forgotten Donald o' the brae. Aweel, aweel, let us shake honds for auld lang syne. I'm glod to see ye weel, Tibby, though time has dune his wark upon us baith. I'm a morried mon, wi' mony bairns....

shop. He was a man of about sixty-five, with one eye, a shock red wig, shaggy eyebrows, a portly person, and an air of ineffable conceit. "What's your wull, lassie ?" he asked of Annie, for her youth and beauty struck him. "Wi ye jist gie me an ounce o' yer best Scotch mixture, friend ?" said Tibby, presenting her box. "I perceive yer a countryman o' mine, sae gie me the best, and dinna charge too dear."

"The best snuff for the best price-I mak na difference. Gentle or simple, I have but ain price for friends or foes. If I give an ounce o' snuff to ilka coontrymon, or selfstyled friend, their's wad be a sma' gain each, and mine a groot loss. I've a gude wife, and mony bairns, and times are heard wi' me in a foreign land, and I have kenned better days."

"Fra wha part o' Scotland do ye come,

friend ?" asked Tibby.

"I'd be after askin

yersel," said the

dertonald. Poor Donald! he was evidently henpecked. The wife held out her large hand for the price of the snuff; Donald could not bear to take it from Tibby Maxwell. The packet-bell rang; the old lovers took a hasty leave.

"To think o' Donald o' the brae coming to that! A tobacconist, and morried to sic a low-born hizzie! Aweel! aweel!"

Miss Tibby begged Annie's secrecy on this disgraceful dénouement of her long love-passage, and, strange to say, she after a while quite forgot her recent encounter with Donald o' the brae, and returned to all her romantic reminiscences, not of the old one-eyed tobac conist, but o' the bonny Heeland officer.

CHAPTER LXXII.

"Oh, Mary! dear, departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?

See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?”

BURNS.

The evening sun was pouring his slanting rays through the windows of a room, the solemn stillness of which proclaimed it the abode of death.

On a white couch lay the light form of a young and beautiful girl; a smile seemed to have set upon the lips, and the red sun threw a faint glow upon the cheek. But yet the unmistakeable change was wrought — Zelie was dead!