side, plaited it in a thick braid, tossed it back again over her
white serge shoulder, and crowded on her sailor hat with unnecessary

vehemence.
"Yes, MY gown; whose else could you more appropriately borrow, pray?

Mistress Ogilvie of Crummylowe presses, sponges, and darns my
bachelor wardrobe, but I confess I never suspected that she rented

it out for theatrical purposes. I have been calling upon you in
Pettybaw; Lady Ardmore was there at the same time. Finding but one

of the three American Graces at home, I stayed a few moments only,
and am now returning to Inchcaldy by way of Crummylowe." Here he

plucked the gown off the hedge and folded it carefully.
"Can't we keep it for a sail, Mr. Macdonald?" pleaded Jamie.

"Mistress Ogilvie said it wasn't any more good."
"When Mistress Ogilvie made that remark," replied the Reverend

Ronald, "she had no idea that it would ever touch the shoulders of
the martyred Sir Patrick Spens. Now, I happen to love--"

Francesca hung out a scarlet flag in each cheek, and I was about to
say, `Don't mind me!' when he continued--

"As I was saying, I happen to love `Sir Patrick Spens,'--it is my
favourite ballad; so, with your permission, I will take the gown,

and you can find something less valuable for a sail!"
I could never understand just why Francesca was so annoyed at being

discovered in our innocent game. Of course she was prone on Mother
Earth and her tresses were much dishevelled, but she looked lovely

after all, in comparison with me, the humble `supe' and lightning-
change artist; yet I kept my temper,--at least I kept it until the

Reverend Ronald observed, after escorting us through the gap in the
wall, "By the way, Miss Hamilton, there was a gentleman from Paris

at your cottage, and he is walking down the road to meet you."
Walking down the road to meet me, forsooth! Have ministers no

brains? The Reverend Mr. Macdonald had wasted five good minutes
with his observations, introductions, explanations, felicitations,

and adorations, and meantime, regardez-moi, messieurs et mesdames,
s'il vous plait! I have been a Noroway dog, a shipbuilder, and a

gallant sailorman; I have been a gurly sea and a towering gale; I
have crawled from beneath broken anchors, topsails, and mizzenmasts

to a strand where I have been a suffering lady plying a gowd kaim.
My skirt of blue drill has been twisted about my person until it

trails in front; my collar is wilted, my cravat untied; I have lost
a stud and a sleeve-link; my hair is in a tangled mass, my face is

scarlet and dusty--and a gentleman from Paris is walking down the
road to meet me!

Chapter XVIII. Paris comes to Pettybaw.
`There were three ladies in a hall--

With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay,
There came a lord among them all--

As the primrose spreads so sweetly.'
The Cruel Brother.

Willie Beresford has come to Pettybaw, and that Arcadian village has
received the last touch that makes it Paradise.

We are exploring the neighbourhood together, and whichever path we
take we think it lovelier than the one before. This morning we

drove to Pettybaw Sands, Francesca and Salemina following by the
footpath and meeting us on the shore. It is all so enchantingly

fresh and green on one of these rare bright days: the trig lass
bleaching her `claes' on the grass by the burn near the little stone

bridge; the wild partridges whirring about in pairs; the farm-boy
seated on the clean straw in the bottom of his cart, and cracking

his whip in mere wanton joy at the sunshine; the pretty cottages;
and the gardens with rows of currant and gooseberry bushes hanging

thick with fruit that suggests jam and tart in every delicious
globule. It is a love-coloured landscape, we know it full well; and

nothing in the fair world about us is half as beautiful as what we
see in each other's eyes. Ah, the memories of these first golden

mornings together after our long separation. I shall sprinkle them
with lavender and lay them away in that dim chamber of the heart

where we keep precious things. We all know the chamber. It is
fragrant with other hidden treasures, for all of them are sweet,

though some are sad. That is the reason why we put a finger on the
lip and say `Hush,' if we open the door and allow any one to peep

in.
We tied the pony by the wayside and alighted: Willie to gather some

sprays of the pink veronica and blue speedwell, I to sit on an old
bench and watch him in happy idleness. The `white-blossomed slaes'

sweetened the air, and the distant hills were gay with golden whin
and broom, or flushed with the purply-red of the bell heather.

We heard the note of the cushats from a neighbouring bush. They
used to build their nests on the ground, so the story goes, but the

cows trampled them. Now they are wiser and build higher, and their
cry is supposed to be a derisive one, directed to their ancient

enemies. `Come noo, Coo, Coo! Come noo!'
A hedgehog crept stealthily along the ground, and at a sudden sound

curled himself up like a wee brown bear. There were women working
in the fields near by,--a strange sight to our eyes at first, but

nothing unusual here, where many of them are employed on the farms
all the year round, sowing weeding, planting, even ploughing in the

spring, and in winter working at threshing or in the granary.
An old man, leaning on his staff, came tottering feebly along, and

sank down on the bench beside me. He was dirty, ragged, unkempt,
and feeble, but quite sober, and pathetically anxious for human

sympathy.
"I'm achty-sax year auld,' he maundered, apropos of nothing, "achty-

sax year auld. I've seen five lairds o' Pettybaw, sax placed
meenisters, an' seeven doctors. I was a mason, an' a stoot mon i'

thae days, but it's a meeserable life noo. Wife deid, bairns deid!
I sit by my lane, an' smoke my pipe, wi' naebody to gi'e me a sup o'

water. Achty-sax is ower auld for a mon,--ower auld."
These are the sharp contrasts of life one cannot bear to face when

one is young and happy. Willie gave him a half-crown and some
tobacco for his pipe, and when the pony trotted off briskly, and we

left the shrunken figure alone on his bench as he was lonely in his
life, we kissed each other and pledged ourselves to look after him

as long as we remain in Pettybaw; for what is love worth if it does
not kindle the flames of spirit, open the gates of feeling, and

widen the heart to shelter all the little loves and great loves that
crave admittance?

As we neared the tiny fishing-village on the sands we met a fishwife
brave in her short skirt and eight petticoats, the basket with its

two hundred pound weight on her head, and the auld wife herself
knitting placidly as she walked along. They look superbly strong,

these women; but, to be sure, the `weak anes dee,' as one of them
told me.

There was an air of bustle about the little quay,--
`That joyfu' din when the boats come in,

When the boats come in sae early;
When the lift is blue an' the herring-nets fu',

And the sun glints in a' things rarely.'
The silvery shoals of fish no longer come so near the shore as they

used in the olden time, for then the kirk bell of St. Monan's had
its tongue tied when the `draive' was off the coast, lest its knell

should frighten away the shining myriads of the deep.
We climbed the shoulder of a great green cliff until we could sit on

the rugged rocks at the top and overlook the sea. The bluff is well
named Nirly Scaur, and a wild desolate spot it is, with grey lichen-

clad boulders and stunted heather on its summit. In a storm here,
the wind buffets and slashes and scourges one like invisible whips,

and below the sea churns itself into foaming waves, driving its
`infinite squadrons of wild white horses' eternally toward the

shore. It was calm and blue to-day, and no sound disturbed the
quiet save the incessantshriek and scream of the rock birds, the

kittiwakes, black-headed gulls, and guillemots that live on the