"Well, Lorimer, you need scarce look at me as though I had cut the man's head off," said the feminine dowager, as she caught her son's glance. "I was not thinking of you." "Of him, then. If you'd an ounce of sense in those brains of which you are so proud, you'd think it the very best thing that could happen. When a man's in everybody's way the sooner he's lifted out of the way the better. That's my dictum." "Neither (though I do not agree with your dictum) was I thinking of Saville Heaton's hard fate." He was taken in God's good time," interposed Mr. Frere. "Perhaps you'd condescend to say what you were thinking of, that makes you look as if you wished we were all supping on poisoned brose," snarled Lady Clochnaben, without noticing the interruption. "I was wishing," said Lorimer, with bitter vehemence, that, whenever God's good time' shall come for taking Kenneth Ross, he may die as forlorn a death as the man who nursed him to recovery, and whom he deserted when it was his turn to. render service. And I wish it with all my heart and soul!" "Devil doubt you!" retorted the Dowager; "but I shouldn't think your banning or blessing would make much odds in what's settled above for that young reprobate: and, though with him (as usual) bad's the best, he had his excuse this time, I suppose, in being too weak for journeying." "A man is never too weak to do his duty; that's my dictum," said Lorimer, with a provoking echo of his mother's manner. "He can but sacrifice his life in doing it; if that particular occasion be, as Mr. Frere terms it, God's good time to take him.' Mr. Saville Heaton risked his life, and lost it, in doing what he conceived to be his duty by his step-son; and we should all be thankful, meanwhile, that the worthy object of his solicitude is convalescent, and enjoying life at Granada.” "Oh! Mr. Boyd, you do hate Kenneth Ross so!" said Alice, with a deprecating drawl. "Ay!" chimed in Lady Clochnaben. "And hate him not altogether for his faults either; though his death would do you little good now, Lorimer." She gave a clutch to settle the black silk condemnatory bonnet a little lower on her forehead, and laughed a short, hard, cackling laugh as she spoke. But the pale anger of her son's face seemed rather to check even her masculine courage, and she hastily added: But you were always besotted with any of the people Sir Douglas chose to take up. I wonder you don't offer yourself as third husband to that ranting red-haired woman at Torrieburn; that faced me out about my factor and the cart-wheel, on your direct encouragement." Lorimer made no answer. He was deliberately folding up the papers he had been reading; and, having done so, he rose. "Where are you going?" "To Glenrossie, to see how Douglas bears this." "Are you coming back to-night?" "No." "Shall you be back to-morrow? "I don't know.” Humph! I'm sure, whatever your return to Italy may be to Sir Douglas and Lady Ross, we'll have little miss of your company here." "You will the better bear my departure on Wednesday." "The day after to-morrow?" "Yes." "I presume you have communicated the fact to the friends you prefer; you certainly never warned me that you were going so soon.' 99 "Warned you, mother? My stay is no pleasure to you my absence no pain! Would to God" But Lorimer did not speak out the rest, or that hard mother might have heard that son of gloom declare his wish that he were lying buried in a foreign grave in San Sebastian instead of Saville Heaton; followed to the tomb by strangers and an English Vice-consul, instead of wept for by natural friends. "Parva Domus; Magna Quies,"" muttered he to himself. And then he held out his hand in token of farewell to the angry dowager. She choked a little, in spite of her assumption of utter indifference. "I suppose this is not good-bye for good and all, in spite of sulks, eh, Lorimer? No, mother; I will see you again before 66 I go." It was spoken very sadly. He bowed to Alice and to Frere, and was gone. "Give way once, and be ruled for ever; that's my dictum," said Lady Clochnaben, after a brief pause. "But Lorimer was a ways a heavy handful; even as a child he was neither to drive nor to lead. But he's a clever brain — a clever brain." And she It made Alice Ross almost playful. There was a pretty glitter in her cat-like eyes, and a sort of purring murmur of underlying content in her slow soft voice, whenever she answered or volunteered an observation. Dear companions they were; dear friends, through shade and sunshine. Gertrude had said no more than she felt, when on a former occasion she wished he had been born Sir Douglas's brother. And Sir Douglas loved him too; with that strict divine attachment which in its perfection we are assured "passeth the love of woman," and which an old poet has immortalized by comparison with a yet diviner communion: "Since David had his Jonathan, CHRIST his John." CHAPTER XXXI. While over the hills, in the calm Western light, went Lorimer Boyd, to that other "THE DAYS THAT GROW INTO YEARS." castle, where the magna quies co-existed yet with life and hope. Sir Douglas had not returned from a pilgrimage on foot to Torrieburn; but Gertrude, who had driven over, was resting on the sofa, looking very pale and wearied. She welcomed Lorimer eagerly, and, after the first greeting, burst into tears. "It is very foolish," she said, smiling through that transient shower, "for Mr. Heaton was almost a stranger to me, and he was a good man; a pious man; but there is something forlorn in his going away to die so, in a foreign land; and I am not very strong just now, and poor Mrs. R ss Heaton is so vehement in the expression of her feelings that it shakes one's nerves!" Lorimer stopped her, with more emotion than was usual in his manner. "Oh! for God's sake, don't excuse your self to me for being tender and womanly," be said. Better to me is any expression of feeling; better the animal howling of that poor untutored creature at Torrieburn than the iron hardness one sees in some hearts! She may well lament Heaton, for a more indulgent gentleman never tied himself for beauty's sake to an uncongenial mate. And he had dignity too. No one ever could have seen who did not watch him closely and understand him thoroughly - how often he felt wounded and ashamed of the choice he had made (if indeed we can term it choice; for I believe the determination to marry was rather on Maggie's side). I have heard her herself say he had never given her a hard word; if I had been her husband I am afraid she would have heard a good many." And, with the last words, the saturnine smile returned to Lorimer's lips, and the conversation took a more cheerful turn between him and Gertrude Ross. THE pages which divide the events of life turn very slowly; but the pages which narrate the history of a life turn rapidly. Events which change whole destinies compress themselves into a single sentence; joy goes by like a flash of light, and the tears which have wasted the very eyes that wept them demand no fuller record than the brief monotonous lament of poor Marguerite in "Faust: "Ich weine, und weine, und weine!" Gertrudes life was gliding by in sunlight and joy. Bonfires had been lit on the pleasant hills for the birth of an heir to Glenrossie; and the little heir himself was already beginning to prattle the thoughts of childhood; and puzzle his elders, as all children do, with questions which theologists, moralists, and philosophers would attempt to answer in vain. "Old Sir Douglas" was very little older; but at that age silver begins to mingle with the brightest and curliest hair, and the temples of that broad frank forehead were getting higher and barer, and smooth under the touch of the strong little rosy fingers of his idolized boy. Mr. James Frere had found a clear field after the death of Mr. Saville Heaton; and had so far modified his views of open-air worship, that he had eagerly seized the opportunity of " mentioning" to Sir Douglas (backed by much more skilful" mentioning" on the part of Alice Ross), that he would not object to succeed that simple and uneloquent preacher; and endeavour, by the grace of God, to lead the little flock (so ill taught hitherto) into the right way. The schools, founded by his earnest predecessor, were also placed under his superintendence; and after. " rigidly were the children trained and looked The penitential Sabbath, instead of the holiday Sabbath, was established amongst them; the "Lord's-day was erased from the book of common life, and left blank from all human interest. To swear, to lie, to thieve, to strike even to bloodshed, were gradually shown to be less offensive to the Creator, than to hum a song, whistle a tune, write a letter, or take a sauntering happy walk over the hill, and sit chatting under the birken trees in the heather, overlooking the silver lake. A boy of ten was excommunicated, as it were, and expelled the "schule," for being found with his mouth and pockets full of blackberries so freshly gathered that they could only have been procured on the "Lord's-day," by the terrible desecration of gathering them on his way to service. In vain did his old grandmother plead in guttural and nasal accents that the creature" was but a wean," a " puir wee laddie that wad be mair circumspeck for the time to come. The time to come was blackened for him with public reprobation; and, as his compeers passed him, sitting alone in the ingle nook, or on the stones in the sunshine, they nudged each other on the shoulder and whispered, "Yon's Jamie Macmichael, that the meenister 'ull no permit to enter, ye ken; he broke the Lord'sday!" " Bolder and bolder grew Mr. James Frere under the consciousness of his own increasing influence; and little by little his flowery and eloquent discourses crept even to the forbidden margin of the habits of Glenrossie Castle; to the occasional omission of attendance, and the " forsaking of assembling ourselves together; " to the neglect of bringing the young scion of the house of Douglas to the house of God, “even as young Samuel was brought by his grateful mother, in very dawn of his consecrated days: indeed, at an age so tender, that his mother made a little coat for him and brought it for him to wear each successive year." An image, which, so far from wanting impressiveness in the ears of the listening population, caused the auld wives to look up with trembling reverence and conviction at the face of the preacher. the Neither did Mr. Frere spare even the "Lady of the Castle" in his fervent denunciations. The singing on Sabbath evenings, even though (as it were to compound with the devil)-the songs sung were harmless, pathetic, or religious; the glad walks and laughing conversations, heard by God, as Adam and Eve were overheard when His voice wandered through the still ness of Paradise in the fall of the day; the robes and sumptuous apparel of the graceful earthly form; the long residence in foreign lands, and the bringing forth out of those lands the minstrelsy of a foreign tongue, "yea, even such songs as Rizzio sang to Mary, and Mary with Rizzio, when her soul went forth to commune with temptation, and with the powers of darkness, and with sensual passion, and the confusion of all things right with all things wrong;" all this the new minister preached upon; more especially on those Sundays when Lady Glenrossie failed to show herself in the high old-fashioned pew, to which Mr. Frere on such occasions lifted his fine eyes, commenting on "the darkness of its emptiness," and not unfrequently sliding in some wonderful way into a comparison of himself with John Knox,who boldly spoke forth the commission given unto him by God, fearing not the authority of kings, under the King of kings; nor the power of the beauty of woman; nor her silver tongue; nor the ruddy colour of her cheek; nor the tangles of her shining hair; while yet these things were belonging to one unregenerate and unredeemed: but with an iron tongue, like a bell that will call to church whether men come or no, or like a clock that will certainly strike the hours and tell that they are passing or past, whether men listen or no, -so did the iron tongue of John Knox sound in the ears of that unregenerate queen and her sinful companions, and so would he (James Frere), while yet his tongue remained unpalsied by disease, and unquieted by the silence of death, continue to speak, yea, to cry and to shout, in the name of the Lord, if so be that by such speaking he could stir the heart of but one thoughtless sinner, and bid such a one turn to God while yet there was time; before the birthright of Heaven was sold for the mess of pottage served in an earthly porringer; before the vain weeping should come, in a bitter shower like the waters of Marah, when the soul should find no place for repentance though seeking it carefully with tears. And now and then, though sparingly and cautiously, Mr. James Frere would allude to his own self-sacrifices in the service of God; and leave the impression on his hearers (however that impression might be conveyed) that he might be called away to a more extended sphere of usefulness at any moment; and would then conceive it his duty to go, even if it were to the blackness of savage lands, where the tiger prowled and the lion roared and the hyena glared through the desolate night, preying like Sa - tan on the unwary; or into the mirth of dis- to be thankful at all to one so unregenerate and unredeemed: whose future fate was probably to seek repentance carefully with tears when it was too late to find it; and who meanwhile was certainly going home to sing outlandish songs" such as Rizzio had sung to Mary and Mary to Rizzio" in the days of sinful feasting which preceded his assassination and the confusion of the whole Scottish kingdom. So wore the time away- Gertrude unconscious of her waning popularity; happy in a husband's love, and glorying in her child; loving with a tender love the mother whose brightest quality was the love she also felt for that dear daughter; and still trying to "pet " Alice-icy, alien, furtiveglancing Alice; and innocently dreaming she had succeeded!-glad, not jealous, at seeing Alice made more of than ever by Sir Douglas, whose love and happiness (good measure heaped up and running over) flowed to all within his reach-glad, not jealous at the regard shown to sir Douglas's halfsister by the poor and the small tenantry; who deemed Alice Ross indeed far more "douce and discreet "than the Queen Mary of Glenrossie Castle, and treasured many word and action intended by shrewd Aili to produce precisely that impression; unwitting that those grains were dropped on purpose for their gleaning, to sow in narrow fields of thought, and bear seed in their turn! And it was in the midst of the swiftly passing though uneventful current of life thus described, that Sir Douglas entered Gertrude's bright morning room one summer's day, shortly after they had returned from a brief sojourn in London, with a bundle of papers and letters half opened in his hand, his countenance so flushed and irradiated with emotion and gladness that Gertrude wondered what could have happened, and thought that, much as she admired him. she never yet had comprehended how nobly beautiful was the dear familiar face. "Gertrude sweet love, — Gertrude," he said, " I have a letter from Kenneth; really an admirable letter; full of feeling and steady purpose and good plans, Gertrude went about doing good as usual; and regret for the past. He begs me to soothing the sick, comforting the afflicted, try and arrange for the last time (you know relieving the poor. But her benefits were he has still been rather imprudent of late); somehow received differently from the for- and says he is about to be married, to one mer days. A strong though vague impres- every way satisfactory; indeed, I know the sion that she and Queen Mary and Mr. name of the family he mentions. A Spanish Frere and John Knox were not dissimilar, girl, of high birth, wonderful beauty, and haunted the minds through whose very nar- good fortune, whose acquaintance he made row chinks the light of his preaching had at Granada, just after that terrible illness; come. Many felt almost a remorse at having her family were extremely kind to him; and men." - my indeed knew all about his people, as I know hers. It is a most glad and blessed piece of intelligence! He is to return here, as soon as he is united to his bride; and he hopes you will like her, and congratulate him. Your dear mother will be here soon and we shall be a most joyful family party. Poor Kenneth! Well, at last all will be safe for him. He will steady and settle at last. Kenneth going to be married; it seems like a dream, does it not?" "A very happy dream," Gertrude murmured, as she smiled up in her husband's face with those serene eyes, whose gaze was like what we imagine the seraphs' might be. "A very happy dream!" and she gave a sigh of relief, thinking how often she had rather dreaded Kenneth's re-appearance after all the stormy scenes of Naples and the threats at the Villa Mandorlo. But Sir Douglas knew none of those things. CHAPTER XXXII. A FAMILY GATHERING. WHETHER it was that Kenneth desired the first impression on his bride's mind of all things in Scotland to be favourable conscious that, with his usual spirit of boastfulness, he had exaggerated all that was good, and suppressed all that was bad in the mention of his home it is certain that he very eagerly accepted the cordial invitation of Sir Douglas to come to Glenrossie "till Torrieburn was more ready." dour of a rich complexion, made richer by the addition of rouge; the glossiness of hair made glossier with strongly scented oils; the deep crimson of the carnations twisted with black lace, on her head; the gems that glittered on her neck; the sudden turn and flashing of her glorious black eyes, and the equally sudden flirting and shutting of a painted fan mounted in mother of pearl and gold, the motion of which was so incessant that it seemed an integral portion of her living self; what with her gleaming smile when the curled lips parted and left her white teeth like waves in the sunshine disclosing a shell; what with the pretty trick she had, at the end of every laugh (and she laughed often), of giving a mischievous bite to the full under-lip, as though to punish it back to gravity; and what with the fling and leap of the soft fringes on her robe when she turned with quick animation to answer you, there was so much lustre and movement about her, that it seemed as if she were a fire-fly, transformed by magic into a woman. And, if she stood still (as she very seldom did), the curve of her neck and back resembled some beautiful scrollwork in sculpture; while her tiny forward foot shone in its satin shoe, a separate miracle, for you wondered how anything so small could have so much strength and majesty in it. The old family butler looked at her, and at the little odd gummed curls on her brilliant cheek, while he helped her to wine, with profound disapprobation; but his subordi nates were so struck with admiration they could scarcely attend to their duties, and only wished Old Sir Douglas had carried off such a matchless lady, when he resolved on bringing a wife from a foreign land. After dinner she sang-melancholy soft He arrived very late, in what splendour four horses from the last inn on the road could supply, and put off seeing his mother till next day; when he was to carry a commission from Sir Douglas, to ask her to" modinhas; animated martial airs; and come over and be introduced to his Spanish wife at the castle (as he was sure the latter would be "too fatigued to go to Torrieburn"), and to dine and sleep there. Donna Eusebia Ross received the embrace of her new uncle and aunt, muffled and mantled as she was, with eager demonstrations of joy, and what the French call "effusion." Lady Charlotte had arrived only a few minutes before, and Gertrude was anxious to chat with her mother, and see to her comfort; so that, till the toilettes were over, and dinner served, the ladies saw nothing more of each other. When Donna Eusebia did at last appear, they saw a most undeniable beauty; though she looked (as, indeed, she was) some years older than Kenneth. What with the splen odd saltatory music, that seemed as abrupt in its sudden intervals of sweetness as she in her own proper movements. Trills and cadences, exclamations and pathetic sighs, and now and then, a beat of the tiny vehement foot in accompaniment, filled up the measure of her performance. If the music of the lute," when Rizzio sang to Mary and Mary to Rizzio," was of a sort held to be dangerous to their mutual morality, what ought to be the result of Donna Eusebia's melodious exercises? ."Oh! I really do think," said Lady Charlotte to Sir Douglas, as she sat perplexed and wondering on the sofa, anxiously pulling the memorable ringlet to its full length and then letting it go again, "I really do feel as if she was somebody in a story: some |