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crously out of place. I entirely agreed with the Lamb, and quite felt that all its joy was justified. The Girl, wheeling in the opposite direction, had never noticed me and was immediately heard calling "Crummie, come hame! Crummie, come hame! Crummie, Crummie, come hame, come hame!"-in a sweetly-balanced and lilting voice. To this, their one Family Cow responded by raising her horned head, mooing her delight, and turning to eat her way homewards from the summit of the Muir, till she would meet her young Mistress by the way, and march to the Byre with the yoke of two loving arms about her neck.

"Gude e'enin'!" shouted I, stepping meanwhile ben through the wide open door, "Does Heather Jock howff Fairies at the Peesweep Nests? Or, was that just an antrin Veesitor that I saw? Ony wey, ye micht hae taigled her till ma een were gleddened wi' the veesion. The lanely Tour o' Tinlie attracks nae siccan birds, but only hoolets and beggar loons."

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'Haith, Laird, but ye'll no displeesure me, say what ye wull in praise o' oor Wee Bell! She's the third o' her name at the Peesweep,-a' gude, a' bonnie; but, sair as I likit the ither twa, meikle as I murned for them, I canna but alloo that she's the bonniest, an' may she eke turn oot the best an' happiest o' the three! Nane o' them that's gane afore wad grudge me that wush, for, leevin' and deein,' it was their ain prayer.

Hech,

man Laird, but yer voice sets me on thae memories again, an' I'm bairnly whanever I touch them! Forgie me, freen. Come ben, an' licht yer

pipe. An' we'll daunner oot, after a wee, an' see the braird o' aitts, an' the neeps, an' the tatties. Oors is but a sma' Craft; but it's eneuch; and we're content. We micht hae ten times as muckle, an' no be half sae canty."

In a short time, the crack meanwhile ceaselessly rumbling "ower A'Thing an' A'Body," the Girl came gladsomely back, and stood like a flake of sunshine falling into that poor homely Kitchen. She would have passed anywhere for Sweet Seventeen, though I afterwards learned from Jock that her "fifteenth Birth Day was last Whissuntide."

The first impression she conveyed to you was that of perfect, exuberant, and glowing Health. She would have formed a matchless subject for one of the daughters of that Goddess, had there been a painter there with the eye to see, and the brain to mix his colours.

Your next thought was that so frank and fearless and transparently innocent an eye had never before returned your gaze. She looked at you as a Daisy would, if it had a soul. She looked at you like the opening Rose, in a dewy morning of June, or rather as the Rose would look if it had a soul behind its eye. It was the gaze of Girlhood on the brink of Womanhood, not yet spoiled with self-consciousness,—the look of holy and beautiful Nature, at its highest and best; a look, which no Woman ever again wears in the presence of a Man, once the curse of Self-consciousness has wakened in her soul.

It was as if you had put a human Spirit behind the eye of her Pet Lammie, and felt it gazing in

wonder and kindliness and sinlessness, searching you through and through.

"Bell, ma wumman, this is the Laird o' Tinlie, come to gie us a ca'."

"Gled to see ye, Laird ! Used to hear ma Mither talkin' o' your traivels, an' the far Kintries ye had seen, an' the gran' Buiks, an' the braw Pictures ye tauld them o' in your letters tae the auld fowks at Hame. I canna mind muckle; for I was only a Bairn, when she dee'd, and left Daidy an' me a'alane. But she likit tae tell me a' the nice things aboot a' oor neebours, an' chairged me aye tae be gude and kind tae yin and a'-' Tak' pains tae like A'Body, an' A'Body 'll like you.'"

"Hoot-toots, Bell," struck in Jock, evidently hugely moved by her references, "dinna gang back on that story the noo! Mibbe, the Laird wad tak a cup o' tea wi' us, or a tumbler o' new milk frae Crummie, and a flad o' cake an' butter?"

"Right gladly," said I, looking to the Girl, and eager for Jock's sake to turn the conversation, "will I take a taste of Crummie's Wine! Nothing could please me half so, well, after my wanderings on the Hill. Far as I have travelled, Bell, and many Pictures as I have seen, none comes nearer ma hert than to see oor ain Scotch Lassies, fou o' health, fou o' glee, leapin' the burns and playin' wi' the lambs, 'Whan the Kye comes hame, Whan the Kye comes hame.' Sae I'll wait till you've milkit Crummie."

Heather Jock made resolute efforts to talk at large, and so did I; but, it must be confessed, rather unsuccessfully. It was abundantly manifest that the brains of both of us were spinning round

other themes than those that seemed to occupy our tongues. It was a relief, therefore, after having drunk a glass of foaming milk and dispatched half a farel of splendid oatcake, with a coating of butter nearly as thick as itself, to say Good-bye to Bell, and to hear Jock remark that "he wad set me doon the road."

"Ye'll no be ower lang, Daidy. We maun kirn the nicht."

"I'll no taigle, Bell.

Dinna begin the Kirnin'

till I'm hame tae help ye."

Remarks, betwixt us, were laboriously attempted, about the Peat Stack, the Aitts and the Neeps, and the Weather; but all sounded far away, and shortly both of us sank into silence.

"I guess what ye're thinkin', Laird; an' I wad like ye tae ken a'. But it's a michty struggle tae face the subject. .. Ye're wunnerin' wha this Bell

may be?"

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"It greatly puzzles me," I confess; and, then, as was generally my custom when my heart was moved, availing myself of the Vernacular, I continued "She ca's ye Daidy; but I think she maun be your Grandbairn. She spak' o' her Mither's deith;-that was na Heather Bell, your dochter that cam' tae the Schule just whan I was leavin't for College, an' oor Laddies o' Castlebraes crooned her Queen o' the May, an' sent her hame tae ye garlanded wi' flooers? . . . Gudesake, Jock, what's wrang? Forgie me, man; I wadna vex ye, gif I kenned, for a' the hairs o' my heid!"

Poor Heather Jock, smitten to the depths of his rugged soul by these tender memories, stood still in

the Muir, threw up both his arms with a great groan, and then tore passionately with his right hand at his heart as if to tear it from his bosom. Suddenly the paroxysm subsided; he fell into step with me, and, looking straight before him, cried :

"I tauld ye, Laird, I was bairnly, bairnly! But whan ye ken a', ye're no the man to blame me sair. An' ken a' ye maun, an' this verra nicht, afore we pairt. . . . There hae been Three Bells i' the Peesweep Nests, as I observed tae ye in the Kitchen: Bell MacGregor, that was ma Wife; an' Bell oor Dochter, that ye mind o' at the Schule; and this yin, her wee bit Wean. I aye ca' them, in ma cracks, Bell the Wife, Bell the Dochter, an' Wee Bell. I'm the only Faither that Wee Bell ever kennt; sae she ca's me Daidy. An' I like the soond o' the word; her Mither said it aye afore her; an' ilka time I hear't, I stert an' think, — Bell's come back tae her Daidy. . . . But, mibbe, Laird, ye'll only lauch at silly words frae an auld fule like me?"

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"Jock," I appealed, "if ye really care for me, tell me a' the story! It'll dae me a warld o' gude, an' it'll relieve yer ain hert. Besides, ye never had,

assured o' that, an' "A' the story? na; that wad be ma verra blude.

an' never can have, a mair responsive listener. Be open oot your hert for yince!” Eh, Sirs, I canna face that! Na, tearin' oot ma hair an' spillin' But, Laird, I'll tell ye o' ma veesit to Glesca an' the rescue o' Bell. That pits mettle in me. I'm better at fechtin' than at greetin'. An', at ony rate, that bit'll no taigle ye ower lang."

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