half as fast as I got down through Fort William to the quay. But if you want to be very much indebted to me," he continued, in his usual frank and good-humored way, "you may take into consideration that I had no time to reef the sail of the Blue-Bell when I set out; I had the sheet once round my wrist, and took my chance of the puffs."

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"I am sure I would much rather believe that you rescued us from very serious danger," said Alison, with a pleasant smile. This I am going to do for you, at any rate," said he―" I am going to show you something of the management of a boat, so that you yourself may know what to do if you should get into a difficulty again. And I don't think there is any use in our trying to get down to Corran-beating against a wind like this-before the steamer comes up from Ballachulish. We should not be in time. What do you say-shall we run away up to the head of the loch and get into more sheltered water, and I will give you your first lessons in sailing?"

"Very well," said she. do what you like with us."

“You have saved our lives; you can

Accordingly Johnny was ordered to haul up the main-tack; the steersman rounded the boat away from the wind, and slacked out the main-sheet; and presently they were spinning along before the brisk breeze, with the water apparently grown quite smooth around them. John, foreseeing a long spell of idleness, proceeded to make himself comfortable. He stretched himself flat on the deck, face downward, put his elbows out at right angles, and rested his chin on his clasped hands. But he did not try to sleep; on the contrary, his small, twinkling eyes were shrewdly observant; and as all fear of a thrashing was now gone from his mind, he was in a humorous, cheerful, and communicative mood. not exactly join in the conversation between Captain Macdonell and Miss Blair; but from time to time he made remarks-which might be listened to or not listened to. After all, he was in a position of some importance. He was the custodian of the boat. He was giving them this sail. Besides, his observations were addressed to the sea, and the sky, and the air; no one was obliged to listen; but the shrewd, twinkling eyes knew pretty well when he had been overheard.

A large steam-yacht passed them, making for the north.

"Cosh, I would like fine to see her run into a steamer!" said

this merry lad (talking to his two hands). "She would chump and chump in the watter before she went down head-first!"

A black-backed gull flew past overhead.

“If I had a herring now," Johnny was heard to mutter, “I would put a hook in it, and float it out with a piece of string; and ferry soon you'd see him come back and dive for the herring. Ay, and when he found the hook in his throat, wouldn't he think he had catched hold of the Duffle !"

There was a small cottage perched up on the wooded heights they were passing—on a plateau, with a bit of clearance around it: a solitary croft, perhaps, removed far above the world, or perhaps a shelter for some keeper or watcher belonging to Conaglen Forest.

"What a lonely place that must be to live in!" Alison said to her companion.

And Johnny must needs raise his eyes too. He regarded that isolated cottage for some time.

"I'm thinking that wass the last place that God made," he observed to himself, laying his chin once more on the cushion of his two hands-" ay, the last place that God made, when He wass going aweh home tired on the Saturday night."

"Johnny," Macdonell said, sharply, "get up and put those oars and boat-hooks properly together. And slack out the lee jibsheet a bit more. What's the use o' your lying sprawling on the deck there, like a dead porpoise ?"

Thus admonished, Johnny got up and began, in a lazy and leisurely fashion, to put things ship-shape; but he was grinning a little; perhaps the dark cogitations of his own brain were affording him amusement.

They ran away up to the entrance of Loch Eil, where they got into more sheltered water; and here, the reefs being shaken out, Alison received her first lessons in the art of sailing a small cutter. It was an interesting, even an absorbing, task; and the first intimation they got that Flora and Hugh must have returned to Fort William was the passing by of the great scarlet-funnelled steamer on her way to Corpach. But still they continued at their manœuvres and evolutions; for Alison was eager to learn; and Captain Macdonell was grown rather proud of his pupil; while to the boy John was administered as sound and wholesome a dose of work as he had encountered for many a long day. They hardly

noticed how the time passed. As the mellow afternoon went by the wind moderated considerably; so that they could run out into the open loch when they chose, with no thought of reefing. Alison admitted that she was rather hungry; but she was not going to give up for that reason. Moreover, when he at length overcame her persistency, and got her consent to make for home, it was found that far more time than they had expected was consumed in getting back, in securing the boat at her moorings, and so forth; and when at last they reached the house, Alison discovered that there was not much more than half an hour left for her in which to write a letter to her sister Agnes before the general assembling for supper. So she went to her room with all speed, for she had promised to write.

She had been there hardly over ten minutes when the door was brusquely thrown open, and her cousin Flora appeared-indignant of mien, and yet amused in a kind of way.

"Alison Blair," said this ferocious termagant, who looked as if she wanted to fling something, and was inclined to laugh all the same, "I'm going to have a word with you. Oh yes, it's all very well for you to look prim and innocent, Miss Dimity Puritanopen your big gray eyes, do!—but this is what I've got to say to you: you may run away with Aunt Gilchrist's money, if you like, but you sha'n't carry off my sweetheart as well-there! Is that plain talking? You can't expect to have everything, surely! Do you hear?"

"Flora!" Alison said, in blank amazement.

'Oh, I know! I've heard of your goings-on. I've heard of your adventures. Oh yes, and your tremendous courage and endurance and coolness-lightning-storms seem to come quite natural to you, for all as prim and mim as you are! But what business have you with my sweetheart?-that's what I want to know!"

Alison had risen; she was very pale.

"Flora, I thought you and Captain Macdonell were engagedI made sure of it-and that is why I wished to be friends with him."

"Look how frightened she is !" said this strapping young damsel. "That's what happens when the guilty are found out. Oh, I know the ways of you quiet ones. Well, I'm not going to quarrel," she continued, with a sudden change of manner. "Take

him. Take him, and welcome. A sweetheart more or less is nothing to me; I've got plenty of them, poor things; wait till you come to the Volunteer Ball, and you'll see for yourself. But all the same it was shabby, Alison, the moment my back was turned !"

"Flora, will you speak reasonably for a moment?" Alison pleaded. "Will you listen? I made sure you were going to be married to Captain Macdonell. Isn't it so ?"

"Isn't it so?" repeated the other. "Well, he hasn't asked me, that's to begin with; and, secondly, he isn't likely to; and a-hundred-and-twenty-fifthly and lastly, dear Miss Dimity, I wouldn't have him. But none the less I consider it remarkably cool of you to step in in this way-"

"Flora!" called out Hugh from below. Aunt Gilchrist wants you both. Look alive! ing in."

"Flora !—Alison !—

Supper's just com

So Alison had to leave her letter unfinished; and as she went down-stairs to the dining-room-a little bewildered, perhaps she was hurriedly trying to recall all that had passed between herself and this young Captain Ludovick, who was not, as it appeared, her cousin's fiancé at all, but, as one might say, a stranger.

CHAPTER V.

A BOAT-LAUNCH.

BUT to Alison the astonishing thing about these good people, now that she saw them in the familiar intimacy of their own home and social circle, was the easy and contented way in which they took their life. Here was no studied mortification of all natural enjoyment; no constant and anxious introspection; no dwelling upon Death and Judgment as the only subjects worthy of human concern. The ordinary incidents of the day seemed to be for them sufficient; a prevailing cheerfulness and good-humor attended both their occupations and their amusements; and if there were sharp words at times - especially when Aunt Gilchrist's peripheral neuralgia was wandering around-these sharp words left no morbid sting. Alison felt all this; but she did

not write to her sister about it, for it was difficult of explanation. But she was well aware (and perhaps with a little twinge of conscience at times) that she herself was being affected by this freer, this happier atmosphere. Gladness came with the first moment of her waking; whether there was rain or sunlight outside, there would be beautiful, clear things to look at; and gladness went with her down to the breakfast-table, where, whatever mischief and sarcasm might be flying about, there was always a covert intention of kindness. Alison, it is to be feared, was becoming a most worldly and careless and thoughtless person. She had forgotten all about Paley's "Evidences." She was as eager as any of the younger folk in their various diversions and busy idleness; she walked down every morning to the boat-shed to see how the new boat was getting on, and Hugh quite tolerated her society now; she made Master Johnny regret the day that ever he offered to be her servant, for she kept him rowing and rowing, while she practised until she got her hands hopelessly blistered; she was ready at a moment's notice to run along and order the wagonette, when Aunt Gilchrist, out of the plentitude of her wealth, would go for a drive; and she showed not the slightest hesitation when, as they pulled up at a certain hotel, she was bidden to go in and ask for Captain Macdonell, and invite him to join the small excursion. Aunt Gilchrist had come forth from her chamber in royal spirits; somehow or other she had procured for herself a temporary mitigation of her neuralgic pains, while refusing to have anything to do with the drugs prescribed by the doctors; and now she was waving a flag of triumph over her enemies, and singing a song of victory. But why, at such a juncture, she should have thought fit to include the Fort William ministers in the hosts she was supposed to have routed, it would be difficult to determine.

"What ails ye at the ministers, Jane?" said her sister-in-law, with a quiet smile. "If they trouble you as little as ye trouble them, I'm thinking you have little to complain of."

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"The bodies! The poor bits o' bodies!" said Aunt Gilchrist, in the magnificence of her scorn. They're just alike with the doctors; they're a' tarred with the same stick; if you do not go to them there will be no mercy for you, in this world or the next. Oh yes, the ministers have got their bits o' bottles too, stoppered and labelled; 'saving grace' written on the outside; and