She was a wee, smally

"My daughter Jane was a beautiful girl,-I'm her mother, and maybe I shouldna say it; but I am no' one to close my eyes against my bairn's faults, an' as for the rest of them, though they are a' gude and well doing, I must say they are no' extraordinar' bonny. But Jane was our only daughter, as bonny a lassie as ye need wish to see. bit thing, no doubt, but spirity frae the first. Her father used to say she took some of her good looks fra me, but it was just his daffing o' auld times, for naebody else e'er backed his words; though in my day I wasna that ill to see.

"Awell, she had a good edication given her, as they a' had, for the good-man said, 'Edicate them weel, and then they'll be able to push their ain way.' He's a well-edicated man himsel', so ye ken I didna interfere. Then when she was done wi' her schoolin', I sent her to learn the dressmaking and manty-making; for I thought she would make a real neat lady's-maid, maybe to gang abroad and see the world; though her father was wild at me for thinking such a thing, for ye ken Jane was his favourite; he thought naebody was sae bonny as her, an' oh he was proud o' her-proud at the kirk, proud when we took a walk, nae less proud at his ain board-end, or if she chanced to be in the shop when folk cam' in, and it was askit who she was after she slipt out o' their sight. Awell, when she wasna seventeen year auld, she was invited to a pairty. Oh, they're bad things, thae pairties,-never let bairns gang to pairtiesNo, it wasna a ball, it was a pairty at a decent friend's house, a tanner that we knew, an elder in our kirk, no less, but his house was near the Queen's Park. Before that day, Jane was a quiet lassie for a' her looks; likin' to bide in the house wi' her work, or her book, for a great reader she was forbye: but after that night, everything o' the kind went wrang wi' her. At the pairty, she had met wi' a sodger-no' a common sodger, mind, but a sergeant, and ane o' the cavalry, a regiment o' the best-famed an' the brawest o' them-and frae the moment she set eyes on him, her head was turned. He was no less fain and fond about her too, and he saw her hame to the door, though we didna know it, and they bude to meet again, and a' that sort o' thing passed between them. A' the while, too, there was a most respectable young man, son to a grocer of our acquaintance, that had just doted upon Jane, and when they used to practise thegether in the singing-class o' thar congregation, she had gi'en him some encouragement, I doubtna; so what did he do on the head o't, but he was off to America, and had made a hantle o' money through the troubles there, and he wrote home, puir lad, that he was coming back to marry her. We liked him real well oursel's, and if it hadna been for the sodger, so did she, I verily believe, and would have ta'en him. However, some time passed, till I found out who she was keepin' company wi', and I put it to her. She never denied it, but straight out an' asked leave for him to come to the house. I argued a long time to her, tel't her how angry her father would be, an' a' that, but she wouldna listen; so I thought it would be far better for her to meet him at her ain fireside, than gaun stravaguing through the

streets. Accordingly he cam', the sergeant cam'-for she woulna hear him ca'd a sodger—a fine muckle tall handsome-looking chiel' he was, I must say, and a grand talker. He had been to India, and to Ireland, and where not-and he could describe about everything ye wanted to ken; though whyles, when he was vaunting about the army and so on, I tel't him that sodgers were little better than big targets, dressed up in scarlet or blue, an' set upon a horse's back to jingle till they were knockit ower. He didna like it much, but he was eyan good-tempered, and he used aye to answer that the enemy were just the same. Then I would say back to him, 'Oh, we've naething ado wi' the enemy-it's you I'm speakin' to, an' at ony rate the enemy doesna want to take awa' my silly bit lassie there!' That was the way I keep't girdin' at him, in hopes to drive him off; no' forgettin' at a time, to make mention o' the young grocer, an' his success in life. But I couldna look at Jane's face without seein' how the case stood, an' some way or other they managed to make theirsel's happy, in fact she said the sergeant likit me particular well. The warst o't was, that her father being throng wit' his business at the time, and no' in till late in the evenin', he saw but little o't, and thocht less. Wae am I to say this day, that I let the truth be blinkit frae him, for I was aye hopin' to hear o' the regiment bein' shifted.

"In fac', at last the orders cam', as I didna fail to hear; the dragoons had to be off to Aldershott, and glad was I to see his back turned. I did a' I could to separate them then; I keepit up the letters he wrote to her, and some she wrote to him, but it was found out, and they were addressed, or they were posted, other ways. I spoke to her, I'm sure my tongue was never off her; but she would not listen. Word cam' to me quietly, too, how young Sandy Stewart was arrived in Liverpool, and was settlin' his affairs to come hame in a week's time, wi' some grand ower-sea presents for his mother an' our Jane; and I said naething o't, thinkin' to tak' her by surprise. But that was less use than a', in fac' it wrought things to a head. How the sergeant got wind o't, I canna tell; but no' a day or twa before young Stewart wun hame, back comes my gentleman, and that very night Jane told me that he wanted her to marry him. I tell'd her, her father would never gi'e his consent, nor e'er forgi'e her if she did it anyway underhand; and this she kent very weel hersel'. She begged me to speak to him, but I wouldna meddle in it. 'Mother,' she says, and she clasped her twa hands thegether, 'I must hae him.' Awell, Jane, my woman,' I says, 'you'll rue it once, but that'll be a' your life. Ye'll break your father's heart, and bring his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.' That night she went out, and cam' back again about ten o'clock lookin' awfu' flushed and feverish, but she said naething mair, till the next morning she telled me that they had gone before a justice o' the peace, an' had got married.

"Oh, her father was an angry man that day, but I got him spoken ower at last. John,' I says, 'since the deed is done, it canna be helpit; the best thing now to do is to get the minister and ha'e them married

properly. It'll never do to let the neebors see she has done that without your leave; besides, ye ken, he can claim her by the law at any moment.' That frightened him to the extent, that at last, after a sore reissle, he gi'ed in, provided a' should be done duly and in order, according to the fear of God, and the sergeant bude to sign an agreement beforehand-being of the prelatical persuasion himsel'—if there was any family, to allow their upbringing under pure Presbyterian ordinances, and the shorter catechism was to be learned them. It would ha'e made the dourest heart wae to see the good-man when he threip't about this before me to the sergeant, like as it laid some ease to his mind, an' couldna be broken through i' the application; but the sergeant made no difficulty about it. Well, they were married-properly and beautifully married-and I sat up till daybreak to get finished wi' the silk gown I bought her, a changing-coloured silk it was, and her father gave her a good kist-full, and I gave her routh o' sheets and blankets, hame-spun dapery, spun in my mother's time, no' like the common trash ye buy nowadays.

"Then they went to Newcastle, and a year after, I went there to be wi' her when her first baby was born; he had her two eyes, but ower like the father otherwise for my taste, though a bonny bairn. I visited her in different places, and was' aye greatly attended to mysel', for the sergeant and his friends spared no trouble, nor they thought nae sicht or show ower good for me, I must say; though I aye withstood the temptation o' stage-playin', but I needna speak mair against it without experience. Awell, frae London the first time I was there, Jane cam' down wi' me hersel' and her two children, winsome wee things to ha'e by us in the house; and weel micht they draw round the good-man's heart as they did, hearin' them their questions and their bits o' paraphrases wi' his ain ears, till ye would ha'e said he was well-nigh contented about the sergeant. It was when she was with us this way, that the word cam' frae headquarters that the regiment was ordered for the Indies. Oh, she was white to see, puir young thing, when we heard it first. 'Mother,' says she, a' goes, there must I and

in a moment, I must go too-wherever my man the bairns be.' 'Oh, Jane, Jane,' I said, 'if ye gang, I'll never see you more-something 'll befal ye in that wild country,' I said, for I felt it in me, 'or ye'll die and be bury't in the weary sea-Oh, Jane, stay wi' your mother like a good lassie !' I says to her. Naething I said could daunt her from it; she was bent upon going. Her father was worse against her going than he had been at her marriage; but what could he do? he had to gi'e way at the last, as before.

"Awell, she went away, and a dull dull house ye may believe they left behind them. We had letters from her at last; then after that, another baby was born to her in the Indies, and she wrote word how much she had missed me, for I had been with her at the rest; the fac' was, I couldna ha'e left the good-man his 'lane, or else, maybe, I would ha'e ventured ower the sea till her in time. She tel't us no little forbye about the places they were in, both the barracks at Dum-Dum as they VOL. XIII.-No. 75.

18.

ca'd it, and the fort at Calcutta, wi' the black nurses she had, and servants like gentry at hame, and queer machines to carry them about on men's shoulders, and private quarters o' her own to bide in, for the sergeant got a Staff appointment, and meikle more she wrote to tell us; but aye her letters cam' ower the words in different pairts o' them, 'Oh, mother, if I could only see you again!' Aye, puir lassie, that will never be in this warld-for the next letter brought news that my bonny Jane was dead.”

The while she had been telling this little story, the good woman's voice was firm and distinct, without a quiver in it; now her clear eye was dimmed, the wrinkles deepened towards it, her lips contracted in pain upon the last bitter word. It was in different tones, like those of some other person, that she added slowly, nodding her head to each epithet: "And the sodger-Jane's man—the sairgeant-the great senseless taurget, as I weel might ca' him-no' nine months after, he was married again. And the bairns, my bonny Jane's three bairns, we dinna ken yet where they are. But we ha'e written to head-quarters, and just only let me hear o' the regiment being in England, an' if I had to traivel the road on fit, I'll gang to him and march them off hame to our ain house, and no person shall daur to hinder. If my puir misguided lassie had but ta'en my advice, she might ha'e been in the land o' the living at this day, and her father, my puir John, wouldna ha'e been the man he is. Is he ill, ye ask, mem? No, he's no' just ill-but he's been kind o' dotedways since the news cam'. The doctor says, just to keep him cheery, and we maun aye mind there's a sure world abune, and I do my best But losh me!" she cried, starting up as the coach entered the outskirts of Z— "I had to get out near here, and this is the address written on a bit paper -the gude-man would put it down, like as I was a bairn, no' fit to take care o' mysel'! I tell'd him he should row me up in broon paper, and stick the addresses on my back, like ane o' his harness-pieces! Noo, I maun get out, laddie-I'm by the place, man!"

The boy stopped the coach, she heartily bid us both good-day, to which we cordially responded, while the worthy little dame was landed amidst the muddy road, needing no help this time, however, on her way. She mingled with the thoroughfare as we rolled on, and we saw her

no more.

A Visit to the Suez Canal.

"ACTUM EST! My holiday is over!" I exclaimed, as I turned my back on Raphael's St. Cecilia at Bologna, and set my face towards Rimini. But who enjoys a holiday like a returned Sahib after his long absence from home? The invigorating air of England seems to respond to his slightest movement, and breathe around him as it were a strange, delicious music. As for me, like a careful epicure resolved to sip enjoyment to the dregs, I had turned away from the Paradise of home to look in on the pleasant wickedness of Homburg, and had crossed the rushing Rhine at Basle before I remembered that the dawn of "Black Monday" was already reddening for me in the expectant East. Lausanne, musically named Lausanne, and "glorious Milan were still before me. But these were fast-fleeting pleasures. Bologna, Rimini, Ancona, rapidly succeeded each other, and passed away like passing thoughts. At Brindisi, than which a more heaven-forsaken hole is nowhere to be found, the light had vanished altogether from my face; but as I stepped on board the Italian steamer bound for Alexandria, the purpose I had formed to make a supplementary holiday of the trip through Egypt, and visit the works in progress through Suez and Port Saeed, threw a last ray of sunshine over my departing joys. Black Monday need not be so black after all.

Nevertheless, if I could have forgotten for a moment that my route lay "Eastward Ho!" the crowded deck of the steamer would very speedily have reminded me of the hard matter-of-fact. The majority of the passengers were returning to a land from which they had fled about four months previously in abject dread of the Cholera. Here was the whole Alexandrine world submitted to my observation in a microcosm. Such a Babel of languages, such a miscellany of nationalities-cigarettesmoking women of bilious complexion and portentous obesity, and fezcapped men, whose one hope was cotton, and whose one fear cholera, might be studied to advantage elsewhere in the Levant; but nowhere. would the individual characteristics be found more strikingly marked. Would I could sketch them with the felicity of Dumas, if it is to him we are indebted for the fancy that a modern Turk in tight frock-coat and fez resembles nothing so much as a bottle of old port, red-sealed!

Pacing the deck among these motley groups, as the vessel glides over the smooth and shining Adriatic, one is tempted to speculate on the construction of an exact scale of knavery which should teach how many Jews equal one Armenian, how many Armenians one Maltese, how many Maltese one Greek. Alexandria is the witches'-cauldron in which all these congenial elements seeth and fuse. A handful of Russians, some