old Lady Glourourum had a system of her own, which she hinted to Mistress Yellowley, after thanking God that her own connexion with the Burgh-Westra family was by the lass's mother, who was a canny Scotswoman, like herself.

<< For, as to these Troils, you see, Dame Yellowley, for as high as they hold their heads, they say that ken (winking sagaciously), that there is a bee in their bonnet;—that Norna, as they call her, for its no her right name neither, is at whiles far beside her right mind,—and they that ken the cause, say the Fowde was some gate or other linked in with it, for he will never hear an ill word of her. But I was in Scotland then, or I might have kend the real cause, as well as other folk. At ony rate there is a kind of wildness in the blood. ken very weel daft folk dinna bide to be contradicted; and I'll say that for the Fowde-he likes to be contradicted as ill as ony man in Zetland. But it shall never be said that I said ony ill of the house that I am sae nearly connected wi'. Only ye will mind, dame, it is through the Sinclairs that we are a-kin, not through the Troils, and the Sinclairs are kend far and wide for a wise generation, dame. But I see there is the stirrup - cup coming round.>>

Ye

« I wonder," said Mistress Baby to her brother, as soon as the Lady Glourourum turned

from her, what gars that muckle wife dame, dame, dame that gate at me. She might ken the blude of the Clinkscales is as gude as ony Glourourum amang them.">

The guests, meanwhile, were fast taking their departure, scarcely noticed by Magnus, who was so much engrossed with Minna's indisposition, that, contrary to his hospitable wont, he suffered them to go away unsaluted. And thus concluded, amidst anxiety and illness, the festival of Saint John, as celebrated on that season at the house of Burgh - Westra; adding another caution to that of the Emperor of Ethiopia, with how little security man can reckon upon the days which he destines to happiness.

CHAPTER XI.

But this sad evil which doth her infest,
Doth course of natural cause far exceed,"
And housed is within her hollow brest,

That either seems some cursed witch's deed,
Or evill spright that in her doth such torment breed.

Fairy Queen, Book III. Canto III.

THE term had now elapsed, by several days, when Mordaunt Mertoun, as he had promised at his departure, should have returned to his father's abode at Jarlshof, but there were no tidings of his return. Such delay might, at another time, have excited little curiosity and no anxiety; for old Swertha, who took upon her the office of thinking and conjecturing for the little household, would have concluded that he had remained behind the other guests upon some party of sport or pleasure. But she knew that Mordaunt had not been lately in favour with Magnus Troil; she knew that he proposed his stay at Burgh-Westra should be a short one, upon account of his father's health, to whom, notwithstanding the little

encouragement which his filial piety received, he paid uniform attention. Swertha knew all this, and she became anxious. She watched the looks of her master, the elder Mordaunt; but, wrapt in dark and stern uniformity of composure, his countenance, like the surface of a midnight lake, suffered no one to penetrate into what was beneath. His studies, his solitary meals, his lonely walks, succeeded each other in unvaried rotation, and seemed undisturbed by the least thought about Mordaunt's absence.

At length such reports reached Swertha's ear, from various quarters, that she became totally unable to conceal her anxiety, and resolved, at the risk of provoking her master into fury, or perhaps that of losing her place in his household, to force upon his notice the doubts which afflicted her own mind. Mordaunt's good humour and goodly person must indeed have made no small impression on the withered and selfish heart of the poor old woman, to induce her to take a course so desperate, and from which her friend the Ranzelman endeavoured in vain to deter her. Still, however, conscious that a miscarriage in the matter would, like the loss of Trinculo's bottle in the horse-pool, be attended not only with dishonour, but with infinite loss, she determined to proceed on her high emprize

with as much caution as was consistent with

the attempt.

We have already mentioned, that it seemed a part of the very nature of this reserved and unsocial being, at least since his retreat into the utter solitude of Jarlshof, to endure no one to start a subject of conversation, or to put any question to him, that did not arise out of urgent and pressing emergency. Swertha was sensible, therefore, that, in order favourably to open the discourse which she proposed to hold with her master, she must contrive that it should originate with himself.

To accomplish this purpose, while busied in preparing the table for Mr Mertoun's simple and solitary dinner-meal, she formally adorned the table with two covers instead of one, and made all her other little preparations as if he was to have a guest or companion at dinner.

The stratagem succeeded; for Mertoun, on coming from his study, no sooner saw the table thus arranged, than he asked Swertha, who, waiting the effect of her stratagem as a fisher watches his ground-baits, was fiddling up and down the room, « Whether Mordaunt was not returned from Burgh-Westra?»

This question was the cue for Swertha, and she answered, in a voice of sorrowful anxiety, half-real, half-affected, « Na, na!-nae sic divot had dunted at their door. It wad be blithe