And now he had come back after a lengthened absence, broken only by his brief holidays, to find the home of his childhood broken up, his mother dead, and Wilfrid almost the only near relative that remained to him in the world.

It is not to be wondered at if in these circumstances Edgar Wynne was inclined to look moodily upon things around him, and to heave a sigh over the disappointments and delusions of life. Now, as he stood leaning against the stone wall of the little harbour that affords its shelter to the Glenarva boats, and looked back at the village, framed in by the autumn woods and hilly background, brighter thoughts rose in his mind. It seemed a wrong, almost a sin, to be sad on a day like this in a world that, with all its shadows, was still glad and beautiful.

He watched the thin blue line of smoke curling upwards from the topmost cottages against the bank of trees that rose behind them, with a sense of satisfaction, and gave himself up to a passive enjoyment of his surroundings.

The little crowd which had gathered on the beach to witness the departure of the herring-boats had now dispersed; the men of Glenarva were at work, and the women had gone back to their homes. Almost the only other person to be seen was an old man who paced silently up and down, rocking a baby backwards and forwards. The lullaby which

he sung to his charge had a seafaring ring about it, and the long looks which he cast every few minutes after the vanishing sails showed that, like most of the Glenarva men, his life had been spent on the waves.

Edgar Wynne began moralising to himself over the aged sailor, and wondering what strange adventures or moving incidents had been his lot in past times. All at once the old man advanced, and, touching his red cap respectfully, asked if his honour would not please to have a row. His boat was lying there on the beach, and if he might be so bold as to say so, the gen'elman would have a better notion of the place if he pulled out a bit, away from the shore, and saw how the coast lay.

Edgar looked at the sea, which was as blue and still as a lake, and thought that on the whole this might not be a bad way of beguiling the morning, and at the same time improving his knowledge of the place. "Well, I think I will come, if you can get rid of that baggage. I won't bargain to have him with us," he added, looking at the infant's grimy face with a man's dismay.

"Bless the little chap, I'd never be for taking him," said the old sailor, with a chuckle and grin. "I'll just hand him over to his sister. Here, my honey," he added, as a tiny child peeped out of the door of a neighbouring cottage, "just you take the little

'un, and see that you don't let him drop. All right, sir," he continued, seeing that Edgar looked in some alarm at the diminutive size of the new nurse," she's little, but she's sharp enough, Suey, and she'll see to him better, maybe, than a sight of bigger lasses. Only I takes him sometimes for a bit, because he's a heavy weight to drag about all day long, and because, you see, sir, I mind the days when I'd little 'uns of my own toddling round me. They're all gone now, bless 'em, but they've left a soft corner in my heart for the babsies, I think, still."

Edgar was a little afraid his new acquaintance might prove too loquacious a companion for his taste, but once in the boat old Jacob had enough to do to ply his oars, and left him to make his observations undisturbed by further remarks. They rowed out from the shore till they could see the great headland which closed in the bay, and the roofs of Glenarva were lost in the thick luxuriance of the woods which clothed hill and valley. Then they turned and came suddenly on a wilder part, where the cliffs rise in precipitous heights from the water-line, and low stunted oaks and a rough growth of scanty herbage are the only verdure that cling to the limestone rock. Close under the shore they rowed, and Edgar was measuring the height of the cliff with his eye, when to his surprise he heard a voice carolling in the air above him.

He looked up quickly, but saw nothing. The cliffs rose abruptly from the water, the ledges of rock cut the air sharply above his head, and it was plain neither man nor beast could find a footing there. Still the clear voice warbled on, strong and joyous in its lightness of heart. He could not catch the words, but he heard enough to know that it was some stirring battle-song. The voice was not a trained one,—even at this distance he could tell that, but it had a passionate ring, a fire and spirit which stirred his soul as it went echoing along the cliffs.

Presently it stopped, and old Jacob who had been watching his employer with a curious smile, gave him a cunning look and a nod.

You'll not hear

"She can sing, can't she? another voice like that in all the country round." "But what on earth is she? A spirit or a water nymph?" exclaimed Edgar. "There isn't a place where a goat could find footing here, and yet that voice sounded close by."

Old Jacob laid down one oar and turned himself solemnly round. Then he pointed upwards with the other to a cleft in the rock almost hidden by a mass of foliage and brushwood. A rough path led from this cave to the top of the cliff, and along this narrow ledge at that moment Edgar saw the slight figure of a girl in a blue skirt walk

ing boldly by herself. The position seemed to him so perilous from where he lay in the boat at the foot of the rocks, that he held his breath involuntarily till the form had vanished out of sight on the top of the cliffs.

Well, old chap," he said with a sigh of relief, "that's a sort of feat which I have no ambition to try."

"Looks baddish from down here," replied old Jacob, with a confidential air; "but you know it's not so bad as it looks, and she can go anywhere. Why, bless you, sir, she's as light as a gossamerweb, and these cliffs and places they've known her ever since she was born, and there's not one of us would hurt her or touch one hair of her pretty head, no, not to save our lives."

Old Jacob paused after this speech, in which he had exhausted both his breath and his powers of expression, to judge from the slight confusion of metaphor to be observed in his language.

"But who is she? you've not told me that yet?" said Edgar. "I begin to think she belongs to the mermaidens in good earnest."

"I thought you must have known, sir," was old Jacob's reply. "I thought everybody knew. But to be sure, I mind," he continued, scratching his head with a reflective air, "I mind now you're a new-comer. Lettice's little Bab, she told me you'd only been there since the day before yester'night