that he was obliged to Flora, and rose up to dance again with Nancy, looking love, ay! speaking love to him, and with his heart swollen and rankling, not with one doubt, but with a host of suspicions and offences. Flora had treated him scientifically; she had now coaxed, now taunted him, till all his worst qualities were rampant; she had made use of Anne Macdonald's nurture, her temper, her fortune, to which he alone was to be superior, her friends and his, the Aldours-all were turned against the girl, Flora had sown jealousy between him and the Aldours; she had all but persuaded him that he, the unstable but wilful lad, was a mere puppet to serve the plans of others, and nothing was real, and nobody was true, and it was all lukewarmness and guile from beginning to end.

No wonder John Dunglas took refuge with Nancy, candid, bouncing Nancy, and listened with a kind of sullen pleasure to her straightforward addresses to his inclinations. 'Would you like to dance the cotillon, John Dunglas? I will call to the fiddler; never mind what the others want. You shall sit here, John Dunglas—yes, you shall—opposite my father, and close to the pastries; there are only creams at the other end of the table. Oh! don't laugh and pretend that you don't care; I have fixed upon this seat for you, and I will go to that side table behind you; no, you can't come with me there for this reason, that you are John Dunglas and I am only young Nancy Robertson of Croclune. Do you wish with all your soul

that you were a younger son like Dugald Macintosh? Ah! so do I; I do, indeed, John Dunglas. But we will be near each other, that will we, and I can hear what you say to your neighbours, and you can throw me a word over your shoulder. What? you will throw me your rose? Ah! do, John Dunglas, and see if I will not cherish it and plant the slip,' and Nancy's fingers actually trembled as she caught the prickly token. 'I believe it is from Mary Aldour's china rose-tree in the tub in the hall at Aldour. But never mind; you need not look to see if Mary Aldour or Miss Anne Macdonald are noticing what you are about; they would not care though you gave away your head; nothing you would do could put them out, they are so taken up with themselves; so sensible, and grand, and good-natured. Oh! I am sure I envy them.' So the red lips chattered, ever showing the white teeth, and keeping harmony with the dark eyes now flashing, now languishing.

CHAPTER X

'HE UP THE LONG LOAN TO MY BLACK COUSIN

BESS.'

HE next day saw Mary Aldour and Anne at home in their own safe, bright lodging of the House of Aldour, where they could laugh' when they were 'merry,' and 'sigh' when they were 'sad,' removed from the Robertsons of Croclune, and what Mary termed their fleabane, unless they chose to summon them on the carpet. Both had a secret notion that the cloud on their horizon would be dissipated, and their temporary cares scattered to the winds, and that they would laugh at the cross purposes of Croclune; and Mary might perhaps be guilty of mimicking Lieutenant Maclean's inflated adulation, and John Dunglas would first colour and then laugh the loudest of all, and call for a repetition of the farcethe picking up of the handkerchief, the turning over the leaves of the music; and then Mary would grow demure and scold herself, and then take off John Dunglas for his volatility pretty sharply. But it would do him good, and help him to self-knowledge.

Possibly it was this coolness, this 'tiff' between the lovers which was needed to bring their affairs to a crisis, and rid them of the perilous consequences of John Dunglas's procrastination and Anne's equanimity.

Still Anne did ask Mary one question in a faltering voice about noon when the parlour and house were most deserted. Mrs. Macdonnel was not nearer than her bedchamber, where she was reeling up the spinners' hasps of yarn, and methodically superintending her little ones' light tasks, and with great judgment and tenderness, not superseding them, but proportioning them to their suffering condition-a discretionary power which she never delegated, not even to Mary. The maids were away to the pasture to milk the cows, led by the Dubh bhoidheach (the Black Beauty), kept for the immediate use of the family. The men were at the nets in the loch, or out in the fields looking after the colts and heifers; the only one at home was Alister, the piper, the descendant of the old pipers who had played the war marches, the gatherings, and the laments of the old Macdonnels of Aldour, and who was therefore privileged to indulge in his reveries, and lead with great gravity and dignity a perfectly idle, musical life. Alister, not unlike a poor, stolid, but proud, enthusiastic, and fine-eared German bandmaster, was blowing up his chanter in the hall-a most heterogeneously furnished hall-a maids' room, where they span, a fisher's and hunter's rendezvous for their spoil, a toolhouse and seed

granary also, yet pleasant enough when the peat fire crackled on the huge hearthstone in winter, or the sunlight stole through the narrow window in summer. The continued drone-not more disturbing than the pipe of the humble bee to those to whose ears it sounded as part of their nation, their rank, their place-served this good purpose, it deadened other sounds, and rendered her own voice bearable to the reserved girl who had a weight on her mind which she wished lightened, and a difficulty she wished solved.

'You were speaking of Nancy Robertson's being such a child, Mary, and she is quite a child in her manners, and I suppose she has been a kind of little playfellow of John Dunglas, as he has had no brothers or sisters of his own, nor known a mother— only his old father. But have you no idea that their connexion may cost her dear, that she has got seriously attached, as a woman I mean, to John Dunglas? And-and I don't believe he has that kind of regard for her, though he was so full of attention to her last night, like my swain. No, no, John Dunglas has no resemblance to that horrid Lieutenant Maclean, only I could fancy that twelve hours ago they were about equal in earnestness.'

Mary listened in great disdain, not at Anne, but at every other person concerned, measured out in a sliding scale. 'I have no patience with them; John Dunglas ought to be soundly rated, and get a fright, if possible, and the whole Robertson race should be