again, and even at the white-faced young probationer, who had furtively looked up.

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"Oh, well," said Mrs. Cowan, not to over-emphasize the hintfor she could see that Alison was grievously confused- a young lady naturally looks forward to changing her name sooner or later, and it's just as well that her friends and her family should have learned to bear the loss-for I'm sure you'll agree with me, Mrs. Gilchrist, that it will be a great loss to them in the case of Miss Blair."

This plausible explanation in nowise quieted Aunt Gilchrist's suspicions; and the first thing she did as soon as the Cowans were gone was to go to her own room and summon Alison thither. "Alison," said she, "what did that simpering idiot o' a woman mean? Is there a talk of your getting married?"

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'I believe there is, aunt," the girl answered.

"To whom, then?" demanded Aunt Gilchrist, with an ominous frown.

"Well," said Alison, after a moment's hesitation, "to-to the young man who was here to-night-young Mr. Cowan."

"What!" exclaimed the little dame, taking a step backward in order the better to stare at her niece. "What! To that creature! To that wizened wisp of a thing! To that voiceless, washedout rag of a stickit minister? Alison Blair, have ye taken leave of your senses?”

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'Well, they all seem to expect it-that's all I know about it," Alison said, petulantly; for it was hard for her to be reproached for what was none of her doing or wishing.

"But you yourself-what do you say?" was the next sharp question.

"I haven't been asked," she answered, with her petulance darkening to sullenness.

"Now, Alison, don't make me angry!" her aunt exclaimed. "Don't you quarrel with me. Are you going to marry that insignificant creature out of spite-is that it? Oh, mind you, I've seen that done often enough. I've seen girls marrying out of spite, and precious sick and sorry they were afterwards. Your family and your friends won't let you marry the man you want, and so you revenge yourself on them by marrying a man you hate or care nothing about. Is that what ye're after?"

"No, it is not!" said Alison, with proud lips, but with tears

near coming to her eyes. "It is not, and you've no right to say any such thing."

“Oh, very well, very well!" said Aunt Gilchrist, still regarding her niece doubtfully. "But what about that young Macdonell? Answer me that now, Alison, for I've heard something from Flora."

"Captain Macdonell and I are the best friends in the world, and we mean to remain so, and I don't care who knows it," the girl answered, with the same proud expression of face, though her head was partly turned away.

Aunt Gilchrist looked at her for several seconds in silence.

"Ye're a queer creature, Alison; and I'm not sure that I've quite made ye out yet. But I'm not going to quarrel with ye, for all your stiff-neckedness and pride and wilfulness. I'll talk to ye in the morning. I'm not going to let you make a fool o' yourself, if I can help it. Oh, I know what you wilful young hussies are capable o' doing when people thwart you; and here you've been nursing schemes and plans, and not a word to me, not a word, though I thought I had some right to be consulted. Oh yes, yes, yes," she continued, as if some new light were breaking in upon her. "I see now why that cringing, crimping, smirking creature o' a woman was a' bows and becks and smiles. My certes, here's a pretty clanjamfrey of a project to be building up in the dark! Oh yes, to be sure, Mrs. Gilchrist was always in the right; and there mightn't be quite so much harm in dancing; and Miss Blair ought to go away to the Hydropathic, that we might try how we could bear her loss, while that great big yellowfaced, sow-snouted lump of a man sate and stared at my bit drop o' negus as if he thought Satan was likely to make a sudden appearance on the table. But never you mind, Alison, my dear. They havena carried off my bit lady yet! No, they have not; and maybe they'll just find out that they've to settle wi' me first. So just give me a kiss, my dear, and say good-night."

Alison's face had considerably lightened at these kinder tones, and she would have bid her aunt good-night as she desired; but as the Minister's daughter she was bound to remember the rules of the house.

"Are you not going down again, aunt?" she asked. "Father will expect you at family worship, and I hear the servants just going in."

"You pretty Miss Innocence!" this audacious little woman exclaimed, with a wicked laugh-and she pushed the girl to the open door, and kissed her affectionately by way of saying goodnight. "Don't you see that that's the very reason why I'm going to bed?"

CHAPTER XIII.

A SUMMONS.

AUNT GILCHRIST came and went; the young Spring days began to lengthen-even in this sombre Kirk o' Shields; and Alison, with a calm serenity of mind that she mistook for forgetfulness, busied herself from hour to hour with her various tasks, and strove to earn, or to continue, the good-will of all these diverse folk many of them intractable enough, some meanly suspicious of her advances, others "dour" to a degree-who made up her father's congregation. But especially was she kind and considerate towards James Cowan; for the poor pale-faced probationer, whatever his pathetic fancies may have been, did not bother her much; while his mother, despite her insinuating smiles and hints addressed to Alison, failed to drive the disheartened lad into any more resolute attitude. Alison was grateful to him for his silence; and she read the two or three sermons he timidly submitted to her; and comforted him with the assurance that they would be very useful to him when he received the long-looked-for call.

But this tranquil life was about to be disturbed. Summer-time found Aunt Gilchrist again at Fort William; and nothing would do the imperious small dame but that Alison should repair thither at once. Periphery, she wrote, had been almost entirely subjugated and driven forth-though sometimes it returned and feebly tried to regain possession; she was going to make up for all the crippled time; Alison was to come and share in her wild diversions; and no longer need the bit lady fear being buffeted about by any fitful gusts of temper. Agnes, she was glad to hear, appeared to be quite strong again; very well, let her take a turn at managing the Minister's house; the elder sister deserved a holiday; besides, Aunt Gilchrist demanded that she should come, and there was to be no argument, but immediate obedience.

When Alison received this summons her heart fell to beating with a marvellous rapidity; and she was somewhat breathless and bewildered, and also not a little resentful against herself that so simple a proposal should so entirely upset her peace of mind. For she had come to consider all that had happened in the previous summer as a sort of dream, to be regarded with a touch of tenderness, perhaps, until it should finally fade away and be forgotten. But this possibility of reawakening associations, of seeing actual places that had become almost visionary to her, and of meeting, not the vague phantoms that dwelt in her solitary reveries, but the living people themselves, was altogether a startling thing. Instinctively she shrank back from it. And then again she began to argue with herself. What had she to dread? The days of cruel anxiety, of bitter farewells, of hidden heartache, were all over now. She had schooled herself into acquiescence. And why should she be afraid to meet Ludovick Macdonell? He and she had promised to be fast friends: and what was the friendship worth if she was not prepared to abide by it? Probably by this time he had half forgotten her. In his numerous letters from Egypt and from India he had hardly ever mentioned her. If she went to Fort William she would merely find that she had one acquaintance the more—that is, if he happened to be in Lochaber at all.

Indeed, when the Minister's consent had been obtained and her brief preparations made, and when she was ready to set forth upon her northward journey, she had almost convinced herself that she could meet Captain Ludovick without any too serious qualm, and that in returning to Lochaber she was not risking the reawakening of any too poignant regrets. It is true that as she entered the little station a sudden throb went through her heart; for she could not but remember the terrible day on which she had come up hither a pale, trembling ghost of a creature-to see the black train thunder away into the mist. The mere sight of those long, empty lines of rail seemed to make her shiver. But that was a long time ago now; and here was Agnes, very officious with her last little kindnesses; and joyful anticipation, not the recalling of by-gone anguish, was the natural mood for a traveller about to enter upon a long and pleasant holiday.

Moreover, this was a singularly clear and cheerful morning that was greeting her setting out, when once she had got entirely away

from the dark and poisoned region surrounding Kirk o' Shields. She saw the sky again-a wonderful thing, far-reaching, with soft white clouds in it that hardly stirred. The air was sweet that came in at the carriage-window. And the farther and farther

northward that she got, the more and more beautiful became her surroundings. The sun lay warm on the wide meadows through which the Forth winds its silver way; the gray battlements of Stirling Castle rose far into the blue. The rugged chasm of the Pass of Leny was hanging in rich summer foliage; a thousand million diamonds flashed on the rippling waters of Loch Lubnaig. And then she got away up into wilder regions-into the solitudes of Glen Ogle and Glen Dochart: but the mountains had nothing forbidding about them on this beautiful morning-there was a velvet softness in the shadows even where a towering peak grew dark under a passing cloud, while for the most part the lower slopes and shoulders were dappled yellow with sunlight. And then again, as she was nearing Tyndrum, she grew still more curiously interested in these outward things; and her heart, in a sort of laughing mood, began to amuse itself with a wild impossibility. For it was at Tyndrum station that Captain Ludovick had made his appearance having come down through the Black Mount forest to intercept her on her southward journey; and might he not be here to meet her now? She assured herself that she would welcome him gladly, even joyously; there would be no embarrassment at all; she would call him “Ludovick," and take his hand, and know that he had not forgotten her. She could not understand how the thought of meeting him had alarmed her. Here she had no fear. In a few minutes she would look out of the carriage-window; she would call to him "Ludovick !-Ludovick!" she could see the flash of recognition in his eyes, his quick step forward, and his opening the carriage-door. Sister-like, she would be as kind to him as she could; and they would go through the remaining stages of the journey in great comfort and happiness; and he would tell her all about Hugh and Flora and the rest of them-while Loch Awe and gray Kilchurn went by, and the Pass of Brander, and the hills of Benderloch, until a sweep of Loch Etive brought them in sight of Morven and Mull, and the mountains that guard the blue western seas.

But even as the train slowed into the little station she knew that all this was entirely impossible; and it was merely to indulge