of life, with all its secret hopes and thrills, is lost to her forever; there remains for her but a bewildering memory, and the hopeless desolation of Kirk o' Shields. These voices in the small parlor convey nothing to her. She is wondering what Flora is doing; what Hugh is doing; whether either of them ever thinks of her. And Ludovick?-perhaps there is a letter already on its way to her, with some word of kindness, of remembrance.)

Late in the evening the Corbieslaw people rose to go; and then it was, on her retiring to put on her bonnet and shawl, that the farmer's wife had an opportunity of talking to Alison alone. But Mrs. Cowan had a wholesome opinion of her own shrewdness, and considered that she knew a great deal better than her husband how to conduct this delicate negotiation. She had no intention of telling Alison that she ought to marry James for the greater good of the Free Church of Scotland, and in order to strengthen the elder's position in her father's congregation. That was not the kind of lure with which to captivate the imagination of a young maiden. She relied rather on the abundant store of napery at Corbieslaw, of which she kept an accurate list in her mind. But before coming to that, she had to make some kind of apology for her vicarious interference.

"Ye see, Miss Blair," she said, when she had introduced the subject in a skilful and diplomatic manner, "a young probationer is naturally timid when he comes to a minister's house; and as for yourself, you are much looked-up to by the whole congregation; and James is a modest lad, and maybe does not think of himself just what he might; so that if I speak for him ye'll no misunderstand his hanging back a little."

"I think if he was very anxious he would speak for himself," Alison observed, with much composure; "so wouldn't it be better to say nothing more about it?"

"No, no; don't put it off like that, and do the lad an injury because he is modest and well-behaved," the fond mother pleaded. "It's not the glib ones that can talk your head off that make the best and steadiest husbands. Of course he'll speak to you himself; but I thought I would like to have just a bit chat wi' ye; for it would be a great comfort to us to know that Corbieslaw would be well looked after when we are gone, even if ye selled the lease o' the farm and only kept the house. I couldna bear to think of my store o' napery being put to the roup and

scattered among other folks' drawers and presses. Just consider this, Miss Blair—”

Here followed an imposing catalogue to which Alison duly listened and not without interest, indeed, for she was a housemistress herself.

66 Ye see, it is not as if ye were being asked to marry a young man with his way in the world to make," continued Mrs. Cowan, "and nothing to back him. I'm sure enough in my own mind that James will take a high position in the Church, for he is well grounded in the Latin and Greek, ay, and Hebrew too, and he's just that convincing when he brings his logic to bear; but in the mean time, while he is waiting, his father and myself will see that he doesna want. An only son too-I suppose ye hardly remember his brother Andrew, that was to have had the farm, poor lad, but was taken away in that terrible veesitation of diphtheria? Ay, he was a bonny boy, my poor Andrew; but he never had James's head; ye'll see what James will come to some day, Miss Blair: he'll make folk talk about him, I'm thinking."

"I'm sure I hope so, if that is his ambition," said Alison; "but really, Mrs. Cowan, I don't see why I should be expected to marry Mr. James, or anybody else."

"Your father is an old man, Miss Blair," said the farmer's wife, significantly.

"I trust he may live for many years yet," Alison said, “but even if anything were to happen to him, I suppose I could earn my own living, like other people."

"How? Ye've been gently brought up, Miss Blair," her monitress continued. "I wouldna like to see you slaving away at needle-work, or teaching, or whatever a young lady could turn. her hand to."

"I'm not afraid," Alison said, simply enough. "And anyhow I'd rather do that than marry in order to be well provided for." "Not if it was your father's wish?-if he wanted to see you comfortably settled?"

Alison was perceptibly startled.

"Why, who said that?" she demanded.

And here Mrs. Cowan not only followed, but considerably bettered, her husband's instructions, and allowed her fancy a little range in interpreting the Minister's hopes and wishes in this matter. Alison was surprised; but she had no reason to disbelieve;

for there was but little mutual confidence between her father and herself; and indeed this was about the last subject that either of them would have mentioned to the other. Alison was surprised, no doubt; but she was not alarmed; in fact, when, after some further representations and persuasions from the farmer's wife, they both of them returned to the parlor, Alison could hardly help regarding with a mild curiosity the young man whom they all seemed to wish her to marry. She felt no dislike to him at all; there was rather in her breast a kind of wonder; and when she shook hands with him at the door, as they were going away, she glanced at him again with not a little interest: was this her possible husband, then?

When she got back into her own small room, to think over this project, she was rather amused than disconcerted by it. It was too ludicrous to be possible. Wandering about her head was the proud fancy that if the whole congregation were banded together in a conspiracy to make her marry this poor lad of a probationer, she would be safe enough, for Ludovick Macdonell would come to rescue her. Nay, she could imagine the simple ceremonial about to begin; friends and relatives assembled in the largest room in her father's house; she and this poor lad, far more tremulous than herself, standing side by side; the Minister confronting them, and about to lecture them on the duties of wedded life. But behold! the door opens; Ludovick appears-regarding these people as if amazed at their astounding insolence; he parts them right and left with his broad shoulders as he makes his way to her; there is a laugh of recognition when he meets her eyes; he seizes her hand, and, without a word or a glance to any one but herself, leads her away.

Leads her away-but whither and to what end? And indeed she might have proceeded to ask herself what Ludovick could have to do with her at all, seeing that in her own mind she had already composed an answer to the letter which every morning she now expected to receive from him.

CHAPTER X.

HITHER AND THITHER.

THIS answer that she had already constructed was pitilessly clear and logical; and was designed to convince him that difference of creed put an insurmountable barrier between them, and that he would best consult the happiness of both by abandoning forthwith what could only prove a futile fancy. But all the while that she was formulating this argument (during many an anxious and silent hour, that caused her sister Agnes to wonder why Alison should have come back from the Highlands so preoccupied and thoughtful) she could not conceal from herself that it was based, not so much upon any convictions of her own, as upon the convictions of her friends and relatives, and of the people among whom she lived. For what was her own attitude towards the Catholic Church, when she came to consider it dispassionately, and as she strove to free herself from those mists of prejudice in which she had been brought up? In former days, when she had been first alarmed by Paley's Evidences, she had sought refuge in authority. Who was she, she naturally asked herself, to set up her private judgment, and question truths that had been accepted by those who had devoted their whole lives to the investigation of these supreme matters? What learning, or knowledge, or critical faculty had she, that she should question, for example, the conclusions arrived at by the Westminster Assembly of Divines? And now, when she came to regard the Catholic faith, if authority was to be her safeguard and chief good, what more august authority could she find than in the religion that had held Christendom for century after century, dowered with the majesty of unbroken tradition, and ever ready to receive into its haven any poor wandering soul that had been tossed about on the seas of perplexity and doubt? In that haven the greatest intellects of many lands had found security and rest and consolation: why should she hesitate to believe what they had believed? No, it was not her own attitude towards the Catholic Church that

caused her answer to Ludovick Macdonell to shape itself so clearly into a refusal; it was the knowledge that if she married a Catholic, her nearest relations would be shocked to the heart, her friends and acquaintances would consider her as one abandoned and lost, while the congregation that sate and listened to her father's preaching from Sabbath to Sabbath would be astounded that the Minister should have been so failing in his private duties as to allow one of his own household to stray away into the camp of the enemy.

And yet when Ludovick Macdonell's letter did arrive she tore it open in haste and glanced over its contents with a breathless anxiety. To her extreme surprise she found there was nothing argumentative or polemical in it; he appeared to have taken it for granted that that was all gone and finished-that the representations he had made to her in the railway-carriage would prove to be sufficient when she had time to consider them calmly; and now his appeal was all to her heart instead of to her head. Certainly he did once revert to the fact of their belonging to different faiths, or to different versions of the same faith, but only to repeat what he had said before, that in these days of religious toleration and of individual liberty difference of creed was a wholly minor matter, that need never dislocate the relations between two persons who otherwise were at one. He did not seem in the least to understand the situation in which she found herself placed. All he wanted was that she should say yes, and forthwith and joyfully he would begin to make preparations at Oyre for the reception of the bride. What more simple? His father would be delighted, he said. He had put his hopes and plans before the old gentleman, who, he confessed, was at first inclined to rebel, for there had been another project in his mind; but the Herr Papa was won over at last, was forced to admit that he had been greatly charmed with the young lady who had visited Oyre that autumn, and finally said, "Bring her home as soon as you like, Ludovick, and I will take the rooms overlooking the kitchen-garden, so that practically you'll have the whole house to yourselves."

"But that's not my scheme at all," continued Captain Ludovick. "Fancy, now, this morning I had to go out in search of my pa, having some business to talk over; and where do you think I found him? All by himself up at the edge of the plantations, engaged in clearing the dried leaves and weeds out of the