alone together. None could know what we did-none could be to us what we have been,' groaned Rory Finralia.

'No, dear Rory,' cried Ussie, faintly, but still calmly, and very fondly. She kissed his great hand over and over, pressed it to her cheek and her brow, and crooned over it as a mother broods and murmurs over her child. Miss Ussie's boat was all but launched on the tranquil bosom of a tideless sea, and Finralia, with all his power over her, could not pull it back to the heaving waters of this troubled life. 'No, Rory, I would not stay even for your sake. It will be better for you when I'm yonder. Here you have seen me weak, and crippled, and ugly; yonder you will behold me strong, and swift, and beautiful. I have been a thought and a sorrow to you, Rory; I've often been an imp of mischief in your house; but you forgive me, Rory, and I hope the Lord of Grace will forgive me too. I will I will grow a sweet, blessed memory; and if I may, I will come down a pure, tender angel, and hover over our dark Finralia, after I've told our fathers that Finralia is redeemed. What though it be at a distance, when the distance is ever lessening, my brother? And I see your crown, Roderick Finralia; I did not err when I was persuaded that you would wear a crown, only I was sorely mistaken in its metal. Mary Aldour let in the first light when she spoke of a man saying meekly and manfully he was in the wrong; when she said those were the heroes who laboured hardest, and against the roughest wind and

God and man.

the thickest darkness. Ah! yes, Rory, we did not understand when we stood sullenly aside, and only refrained from evil, when we raged that we were forsaken by our fellows; ay, when we murmured against our very Maker. That was not the road, yet the path was clear, and the crown hung high overhead, right in our sight. "A strong heart to a steep brae," Rory, and that brae to amend the wrong, to suffer as it seemed unjustly, to bear what our poor, sinful forefathers brought upon us, and die in the toils, retriev ing their crimes, and restoring the ruins that the unhappy men and women made of truth and virtue, until their name is a new name, and their glen is a habitation blest as Aldour. Keep the crown, Rory, and wear it in the sight of The God-man will guide you, arm port you; to save us, He wore such another; He came down and bore the humiliation, and endured the shame; He founded for His brethren a fresh manhood, and opened for them the gates of Paradise. It is straight now, Rory, all that was ravelled before. The world is a conflict where crueller gashes are dealt than ever were cut by the old claymores; but oh! thank God, it is not aimless; it has a grand rallying cry; grand is the progress of the campaign, and grander the proclamation of peace that will come at last. Oh! pray to read it for yourself, Rory, in the pages of the Bible, and the sun in the sky, and the ranks of men; and, Rory, aim hard and close at the crown.'

you, and sup

'So help me, Ussie, I will do my best,' whispered Finralia, laying down his head.

'And you will keep your word, and the Lord will not fail, and you will wear the crown-the bravest crown in the Country. I aye said it, though I kenned not what I said. I would have given you the cold, glittering, fairy gold of this world, that turns to base lead on the brow which it cumbers and soils; but you will have the fine gold-the red gold-the burning gold of Heaven, Rory, which immortals can carry and not a hair of their heads singed, or their clothes bearing the smell of the burning. Farewell, dear Mary Aldour, our friend, who has succoured us in our need. When we three meet again, lass, Finralia will wear his crown, and stand like a king looking gently down on you and me.'

CHAPTER XXII.

'WOE TO THE VANQUISHED.'

HERE is a period in most men's history when, for their good, they see themselves beaten men; but it is not pleasant for mortal flesh and blood, and

though the sufferers often endure it

with a kind of Spartan stoicism, or better, Christian fortitude, it is a sore trial to faith and patience. Mary found it so this summer. She was back in Ald our, but all was changed; it was the same Aldour no more. All had been in the battle, and all seemed to have come out worsted, and with the soil of battle upon them.

Old Aldour the day's-man for his cousin, where he had been lord and master-Anne herself, however gay and good, with that scar on her heart which Dunglas had left there-Mrs. Macdonnel following Aldour with her head turned, like Lot's wife, after the weakly children, and her strong affections torn asunderCharlie gone-Mary herself thoughtful and still, and for the first time in her life fully realizing a sedentary, quiescent existence-Miss Ussie dead and silent in

her grave, which, like everything else in Finralia, was the most forlorn of burial-places, nettles and docks disputing for precedence-and planted in no country kirkyard, among friends and dependents, but in sullen isolation, in a nook by the rushing water, full in sight of the windows of the grey house, and the gaping boles of the old castle.

And Finralia was changed most of all-a new spirit was in Finralia. The Laird had at last turned to his birthright, and taken to improvement and progress. A quarry was opened up in a gloomy scaur, drains were forming in the half-submerged haughs, fields were clearing from rocks and broom cows, the chip of the mason's chisel was heard making an undreamt-of stir and expectation in the neglected glen, and in truth a stone cottage here and there was rising with solid chimney and real glazed sashes, an immeasurable brightening of the old turf huts. And Finralia had feed a schoolmaster for the children of the clan, and there was a talk of a little kirk to themselves, where a minister would instruct their ignorance, and no better-informed, better-behaved, better-apparelled people would taunt them with their wildness and barbarism. Last of all, an architect had examined the dilapidated house and proposed a new face to it, and was in the act of drawing plans of an avenue, a court, and a garden, which should contain a labyrinth and a wilderness; as if these were the things wanted.

Why, Finralia must be about to take to himself a