intelligence brought by the servant. If the boat has sunk, my sons cannot all be lost, for James went not with the rest, but rode by land.' James, however, was with the rest. He had chosen to take the boat on his return, with his brothers and cousin.

It may be presumed that the fate of the party was not all at once absolutely despaired of. They might have put in somewhere along the voe, either in frolic or by mistake. Upon this slender hope, incessant search was made along the shores of the voe, and in the country around, for the young Giffords and their cousin. During the first day, neither hope of good nor certainty of evil was attained from the search. But with the suspense despair began to creep over the bosoms of those most interested in the issue; nor was the feeling groundless. On the afternoon of the second day the body of John Gifford was cast ashore on the beach of the voe, not far from the house of Busta.

One of the two men by whom the body was found ran to the house to communicate the information. Every inhabitant was at the moment out of doors, so incessant had been the search, excepting Lady Busta and Barbara Pitcairn, the latter of whom was in a condition of helpless anguish, while in the former the accident seemed but to have caused an additional sternness. As the shortest mode of delivering his tidings, the man from the beach rushed up to the window of the sitting-room and announced what had occurred. As soon as the wretched orphan heard what he said, a wild shriek burst from her lips-she uttered the words 'My husband!' and fell to the ground insensible. Her exclamation was not lost on the ears of the person beside her. Lady Busta had heard the man's tidings without emotion, but the words of Barbara Pitcairn seemed like the sting of an adder to the lady. She cast on the prostrate girl a glance of mingled scorn and hate, and then muttering: 'Ay, has it gone so far!' she left the room to go to the beach.

Some time elapsed ere Barbara recovered from her swoon, and it was some time longer ere she regained a com

plete consciousness of what had passed. When she did so she started to her feet, and pressing her hands to her brow, as if to quiet the throbbings within, darted with hurried steps from the house in search of the body of her beloved. A number of persons had already collected around it, and Barbara was thus easily directed to the spot. When she came up her face pale as death, her hands distractedly parting her dishevelled locks from her brow, and her eycs wild as a maniac's-the attention of all was turned to her. 'Stand back!' she cried, or rather screamed, in accents most unlike those of the timid gentle girl that all had known her to be-stand back! He is mine! he is my husband-mine in life and in death !' So saying, she made her way to the body, fell on her knees beside it, and bathed the cold lips and brow with her kisses, uttering the most passionate exclamations, and calling upon the dead to return to her- to his wife!' Those around felt equal surprise at her words and pity for her grief; and Lady Busta too put on a pitying aspect, but it was as if of pity for the poor girl's hallucination. Barbara caught the expression of Lady Busta's face, and again she cried: 'Yes, he was mine !—my wedded husband, in the sight of God and man! See! mark, all of you! I have tokens !' With this she hurriedly opened the vest of the deceased, ejaculating as if to herself: 'Next his heart-in his bosom he wore them-for my sake, for the sake of his unborn child!' But, after a time, her hands began to relax in their search; a degree of faintness appeared to come over her, and she cried: They are not here! they are gone!' Her eyes at this instant fell on Lady Busta's countenance: an expression of triumphant malice sat upon it; and the miserable Barbara, exclaiming: They have been taken away, and I am lost!' fell back on the ground in a state of utter unconsciousness. She was borne to the house in a condition scarcely more alive than that of the corpse which was carried beside her.

The bodies of the other unfortunate Giffords and their cousin the clergyman were all found in the course of the succeeding few days; but the cause of the loss of the

boat on so calm a night was never known. Left childless, or at least without male heirs, by this event, it might have been supposed that the intelligence of her son's having left a widow, and that widow likely to become a mother, would have been to Lady Busta like the rise of a star of hope upon a night of sorrow. It might have been expected that the relict of her son would, under such circumstances, have become to her the most interesting object on earth, and that she would have watched over her with inexpressible solicitude, in the hope of receiving a precious compensation for all that had been lost. Human beings with ordinary feelings will scarcely credit that it should have been otherwise; and yet it was so. After the discovery of her eldest son's remains, and the scene already related, Lady Busta unscrupulously gave out that the expected infant which Barbara Pitcairn confessed herself about to bear, was illegitimate, and that no marriage had ever probably been thought of by her son. Too well did Lady Busta know that no proofs of that marriage could now be adduced to falsify her words. Too well also did poor Barbara know it after the hour when she knelt by her beloved Gifford's body on the beach. From the sick-bed to which she was then carried she never rose for many weeks, and she had prayed never to rise again, unless it was the will of Heaven that she should live for her child. Her spirit, her heart, was broken, and she had no strength to struggle against the power that oppressed her. She had no home, no friends to fly to. One only attempt to move Lady Busta's compassion did she make one only attempt to avert shame from the unborn child, for the father's sake, if not for the mother's. Lady Busta's reply was in these stern words: 'Woman! an acknowledged alliance with thee would disgrace our house, and thou and thy child must suffer the penalty that all pay who offend and disobey me!' Lady Busta's husband, however, a good man, but incapable of contesting against his wife's will, was much kinder to Barbara, and gave her strong assurances that her child and she should be protected,

Nor did these assurances prove nugatory. After recovering from her sickness, Barbara removed from Busta House to a neighbouring cottage, where she gave birth to a fine boy. To this child his grandfather became deeply attached; and after a year or so had passed away, he prevailed on Barbara to give the boy to him, to be brought up and educated. Strange to say, Lady Busta gave her consent to this arrangement, although upholding at the same time the little Gideon-for such was the name given to the boy to be illegitimate. Nay, more: she exacted from the servants of the family and from all around the same respect and attention to him as if he were the undoubted wedlock-born heir of Busta. Her own behaviour to him exhibited a striking mixture of affection and dislike. Though she suggested nothing, yet she objected to nothing that was for his good. She even consented, after the lapse of several years, and when her husband felt himself dropping fast to the grave, that an entail of the estate of Busta should be executed in favour of the boy! This deed was not long drawn up ere the old man died, and his grandson Gideon thus became, when about twelve years of age, irrevocably the heir of Busta.

The last years of Barbara Pitcairn's life were soothed by the thought of her son's welfare, and at her death, which occurred a few years after that of Gideon's grandfather, she had but one desire left unfulfilled relative to things of earth. Lady Busta, at Barbara's request, went to see her on her dying bed, and on entering the room where she was, beheld her lying, pale and emaciated, with her son on his knees, weeping over her hands. The departing woman spoke not on the visitor's entrance, but, pointing with her finger to the handsome form of Gideon, cast on Lady Busta a look of pathetic entreaty. The lady understood the look, but her cruel pride steeled her against its influence, and she turned and walked away.

Barbara Pitcairn died on that night, and within three years afterwards Lady Busta also sank into the tomb, leaving Gideon Gifford, at the age of twenty-one, the sole

possessor of the property of Busta. Yet the stain of illegitimacy remained upon him, and he had married, and become the father of a large and happy family, ere the honour of his mother-of poor Barbara Pitcairn-was vindicated before the world, though that world, to do it justice, had ever entertained the impression that she had been legally married to John Gifford. Among the papers of Lady Busta was a packet given at her death to Lady Symbister, one of her daughters. In this packet was a marriagecertificate, bearing that John Gifford and Barbara Pitcairn were duly married by John Fiskin, in presence of William and Hay Gifford, attesting witnesses. All these partics, it will be remembered, perished in the voe! Accompanying this certificate was a letter from Lady Busta to her daughter, confessing that she had denied the fact of her son's marriage chiefly because she could not bear the thought of such an alliance, or that any one 'should divide authority with herself in the house of Busta!' How Lady Busta became possessor of the proofs of the marriage does not appear from the packet. The opportunities, however, which she had when the body of her son was found remove all mystery from the matter.

These disclosures restored honour and station to the descendants of John Gifford and Barbara Pitcairn. The measureless and indomitable pride which prevented the earlier reversal of the injustice, and, indeed, which caused the injustice to be done at first, may be thought unnatural; and yet nothing can be more faithful to the reality than the picture given of Lady Busta. Such characters certainly occur seldom in nature, but it is not the less true that they do sometimes occur. Happy it is for society that they are but rarely seen!