teen; but she had heard, and, with a quickness of hand and intelligence beyond belief, sprang to the bed, and pulled out from underneath it a large tub of clear distilled whisky; then, flying to a chest, she threw a quantity of linens into it, and on the floor by it, with some pieces of soap, and stood with sleeves tucked-up, and an empty pitcher in her hand, as the excise officers stopped at the threshold.

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Aye, aye, my lass!" they said, “here we are, and you may call your father and mother as soon as you like, to help us in finding your smuggled store."

"Father's on the hill with the sheep, and mother is before me at the burn for water: we are busy with the washing the day; but ye may look and search but and ben, and out and in. Ye hae come a long travel to find nothing," she replied boldly.

She then gave her pitcher to a younger sister (not deficient in intelligence either), and desired her to go to the burn and help her mother up with more water, while she coolly proceeded to sort the clothes on the floor. The whisky, not being disturbed, gave forth no evidence. The excise men searched as she had advised them, but and ben, out and in; and, after an hour's fruitless hunt, marched up the hill to further suspected places, swearing at the wrong information given them of Hamish Stuart.

Marchmoram again turned to Esmé, and asked—

"Does much smuggling still go on in this district ?"

"Yes, more or less each season; though of course to no extent in comparison with what it did ten or twelve years ago. You know you can't argue the people into it's being wrong; they think the Queen is rich, and that she cannot possibly require the small amount of duty they keep from her."

Shortly after the dessert had been placed on the table, a silver kettle full of boiling water was brought in, and tumblers with toddy ladles-spoons of a round shape, with long handles of ebony and silver. Glenbenrough called for claret, which was placed opposite Marchmoram, while the host and other guests began to mix their toddy. The young ladies rose and proceeded to the drawing-room; not long after Marchmoram followed. Norah and Ishbel were not in the room, and Esmé was seated on the window sill, watching the setting sun, as Marchmoram stood beside her.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she exclaimed, raising her head, her blue eyes beaming brightly upon his face.

"Beautiful!" he replied, with his own fixed

upon her.

"When I was a little girl there was a poor crazy woman lived here; we called her Foolish Jeanie:' she was quite harmless, and she used to follow us everywhere and join in our play. What a lover of the sky she was! She used to paint such imagery for us out of the clouds: she improvised courts of royal state and glorious purple robes, and bloody battlefields with wreathing smoke. I learned to study the scenery of heaven from her thus; so far as it was visible to us."

"I am very sure you know more of heaven than of earth," Marchmoram said in a low voice.

"I love the world so far as I know it," said Esmé, brightly; "I love my own beautiful, beautiful Highlands, where I have never seen any misery; for even the poorest people here are contented: it seems as if the mountain air braced their minds as well as their bodies. They are all happy on the hills: none of our old people would exchange their peat smoke for coal fire in a town.'

"Have you never been out of the Highlands ? "

"Never;

and she laughed. "Only fancy, I have never seen a railway, or been in a steamboat, even! If I could not read and also listen to people who had travelled, what a little savage I should be!"

Marchmoram did not answer: he seemed absent; yet his eyes were fixed on her neck.

She blushed. "Do you think it wrong my wearing this? she asked, putting up her hand quickly to a little necklace of scarlet beads round her throat; "it is part of a French rosary my foster-mother gave to me: it belonged to her mother, who was a Roman Catholic; but I only wear it for ornament, and did not think any one would know what it was."

Marchmoram now blushed slightly as he replied, "Oh, no, not at all wrong." He had been gazing at the pure whiteness of her neck, not at the necklace; but Esmé was innocent. Poor child!

"Norah and Ishbel are in the garden; let us go too." They went downstairs and met the sisters in the hall; but Norah threw her plaid on again, and they all sallied out together. The garden was a large rambling one; the upper part at the back of the house was laid out in grass and plats of flowers, with pretty baskets of fir cones and birch, and was nicely kept. It spread on into clumps of trees, flowers, and vegetables, until it joined an old orchard, quite a wilderness of knotted old apple and cherry trees; this swept down to the river banks in front of

the house, but lower down, and the fruit trees became lost amidst birch and chestnut and lime. A boat was moored by a chain to the trunk of an old cherry-tree on the river bank, and in an open summer-house by it were stored trout fishing rods, baskets, and other apparatus.

"Do you like fishing, Mr. Marchmoram?" Norah asked. "We often amuse ourselves with it: at least Ishbel and I; but Esmé is lazy."

"You mean too active, Norah! I don't like it because it requires such patience."

"Well, our reasons assimilate, Miss Esmé: I don't like it, because it is not exciting enough," he said with a smile.

“I wish Normal would come," cried Ishbel, "that we might make some of our excursions. Have you ever seen our cousin Normal, Mr. Marchmoram?

"No; is he one of the clan ?"

"Oh no!

He is our nineteenth or twentieth cousin. He is young Arduashien, Mac Alastair of Arduashien's only son: he is instead of a brother to us; but I don't think he will be yours, Esmé!"

“Ishbel! hush. Let us row a little down the river, Norah," said Esmé, unwinding the chain as she spoke. They stepped into the boat, and Norah took one oar while Marchmoram took the other; but he bit his lip, for he was awkward in pulling, and he was afraid the little Celts would laugh; however, the boat glided with the current, and they merely used their oars when Ishbel gave warning of a sunken rock.

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Sing Normal's song, dear Norah," she said, and without further pressing, Esmé and Norah sang sweetly a little Gaelic song, the refrain of which haunted Marchmoram's ears all the evening,

"Foam, Foam, Foam, Essain."

The river banks on both sides were thick with underwood, tall natural hollies, and a species of small wild black cherrytree peculiar to Scotland; while tall ferns and ivy and honeysuckle grew down to the water's edge. Beyond the green foliage rose the blue and gray ridges of hills, marking the course of the road on the opposite side of the river. The girls pointed out, at one place, the black game sitting heavily on the leafy branches above them. "I think they must know us," cried Ishbel, laughing, "for they are never disturbed when we come floating past them."

The perfume of the honeysuckle was sweet on the river

breeze, and the exquisite note of the thrush and blackbird (they are called the mavis and the merle in Scotland) came with it. The colouring of earth, sky, and water, and the white dresses of the girls, seemed all to blend into beauty together. Marchmoram felt his senses soothed and satisfied. How pleasant it was enjoyment without distraction. When they returned to the house, the tea table was spread in the drawingroom; a hissing urn rose amid plates piled with oat-cakes, toast, and honey; but there was no appearance of Glenbenrough or his guests.

"You must not think papa remiss, or forgetful of you," Norah said; "but he is talking of his sheep. The old gentlemen of the last generation, like those in the other room, would scarcely think of coming to the drawing-room at all: when they sit long and order fresh relays of toddy, they get quite absorbed in each other's society, and would sit almost all night talking of their past and present. I will go to the piano and play a reel; perhaps that may bring papa."

And shortly after they all appeared; Borlagh, his complexion suffused to purple and his breathing painfully apoplectic, sat down with a grunt upon the sofa; and Dr. Macconochie, having asked Esmé for a "dish of tea," descended stiffly and slowly beside him. Macpherson, of Phee, stood on the rug cracking his fingers and shuffling his feet to the reel tune. Glenbenrough drew Marchmoram to the window, and a discussion on sport and the various beats of Dreumah began. Soon after, Marchmoram said he saw that the gillie whom he had despatched back to Dreumah before dinner was now in waiting with his hill pony, and he thought it as well to get round the Roua Pass in daylight; or rather, ere darkness increased. There were delays, though, ere he had said good-night; and as he mounted at the door, the moon rose pale and silvery behind the hill. "She will lighten the Pass-and don't hold the pony's head," cried Glenbenrough as Marchmoram rode off.

Marchmoram looked back as he ascended the path, and saw three white dresses floating on the threshold of the old gray house; he thought he could distinguish the fair hair of Esmé in the moonlight. As he reached the summit of the Pass the moon was in full splendour, and cast the shadow of himself and pony back towards the house. As the pony turned the abrupt corner, and placed hoof before hoof with faltering step in rounding the Pass, Marchmoram felt a fascination in the danger, and he gazed beneath with unwinking eyelids and

breath suspended. The red precipice ran headlong down-he felt as if leaning over it-and the river beneath was so dark in the distance that the moon only glimmered here and there where the water fretted on a rock. Dark and fantastic shadows

lay before him and crossed his path. Just as the pony, with а sort of bound of relief, sprang snorting up on the other side, it reared up in affright so as nearly to strike the outer edge again. A gray clad figure was sitting on the downward path, and Marchmoram, as he spurred the pony past, recognized Ewen Mackenzie, resting on his way back to his mother's cottage at Lochandhu.

"I'll displace ye on the path to Glenbenrough yet," muttered Ewen in Gaelic, as his late master rode on.

:

CHAPTER IV.

THE FISHING OF LOCH NIGHTACH.

They passed the muir o' berries blae,
The stone dyke on the lea,

They reached the lodge o' the bonny rae
Beneath the birchen tree.

And they rade on-and they rade on,
And a' by the light of the moon,
Until they cam to yon wan water,

And there they lighted doun.—MINSTRELSIE.

Ir was on the 20th of August that Marchmoram dined at Glenbenrough, and on the 22nd he retraced his steps there and called. The family were from home; the laird and his daughters having gone to Strathshielie for a couple of days. He left a note inviting Glenbenrough and the Miss Mac Neils to lunch at Dreumah Lodge, and draw Loch Nightach for trout.

"Oh, dear papa, let us go!" cried Ishbel and Esmé together, when this note was found on their return home on the 23rd. "We have not been at Dreumah for several years. What do you say, Norah?"

do

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I don't know," replied Norah, slightly hesitating. "Papa, you think it would be perfectly correct?"

"Correct?" Glenbenrough drew himself to his full height.