master's privy-counsellor as well as henchman, was, at all times, ready to encourage that petty jealousy and rivalship which gave scope to his own powers of derision and sarcasm. A few evenings before this, he had quarrelled with Mr. Hutchen's gamekeeper in a casual rencontre on the moors, through whom, as he openly boasted on his return home, he had bravely, in his own and his master's name,

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given the dare to the seed and breed of Muckle Meg, skin and birn."

It must be owned that slighter insults have, before now, stirred the bile of country gentlemen, and carried their animosity to the extreme point.

Monkshaugh had that overweening conceit of his own family consequence which lulled him in the belief that John Hutchen, of Harletillum, would not, could not, durst not have the audacity to imagine, much less to offer, any real outrage to the dignity of the family of Grahame of Monkshaugh, or to the actual head of that renowned house. The entreaties of Elizabeth, that he would be on his guard and provide against the worst, were therefore treated with scorn as wanting in spirit, or with pity as made in girlish ignorance. Beside her well-founded apprehension of the resentment which Monkshaugh was drawing upon

himself, by maintaining this futile and ignoble warfare with his rich neighbour, feelings yet more painful, apprehensions more distressing were pressing on her mind. To her true and devoted affection it appeared humiliating and ungenerous to doubt of his regard whom she so ardently and so entirely loved. But that leaden torpid sickness which alternates with the acute agony of "hope deferred," was creeping around her heart in her own despite.

From the date of the conversation which Elizabeth had so unfortunately overheard, every changeful mood and fluctuation of her own spirits was become another cause of horrible anxiety and disquietude. As often as the agonizing fear of the family malady of the de Bruce seized her, the native energy of her mind was promptly exerted to dispel or banish those phantom terrors which, when indulged, do too often, it may be feared, obtain power to realize themselves. To a mind oppressed with the fearful consciousness of being liable to hereditary mental distemperature, it must ever be a dangerous occupation to watch those misty and illdefined boundaries which sometimes are all that seems to divide exalted passion and enthusiastic excitement from mental aberration. Of this Elizabeth was well aware. Yet there are acute and

fanciful minds to whom this habit of self-contemplation, and a morbid watchfulness of morbid sensation, and of the varying symptoms of the mind's health, is peculiarly seductive; and Elizabeth's was, at this time, of this class. To guard against indulgence, in a study so dangerous, she had for some weeks inured herself to a life of incessant • bodily activity, worked, and rode, and walked, and sung, and bravely struggled to conquer this besetting desire of shaping out of the dark future the misty forms of unknown evil. She had entered actively and zealously into all the household improvements and reforms of Monkshaugh, joined whatever rural society offered in their secluded abode, and obtained the suffrage of her own mind for exertion and fortitude to which she had indeed few external excitements. But on her return from

visiting Gideon this morning, notwithstanding the amusement she had derived from his literary and proselyting schemes, the nervous depression and langour of her spirits became so excessive, that, shutting herself up in her solitary chamber, she gave way to the woman's weakness of those slowdropping and yet soothing tears which can be assigned to no certain source, but which gush up in silence, relieving, by their quiet flow, the hidden and surcharged springs of the soul.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ARREST.

You have undone a man of fourscore years,
Who thought to fill his grave in quiet: yea,
To die upon the bed my father died,-

To lie close by his honest bones.

Winter's Tale.

WHILE submitting for once to this weakness, Elizabeth heard the trampling of feet in the court, and in the space of a minute the thrilling cry of some one as if in extreme pain. With the speed of thought she rushed into the parlour, which she found filled with strange faces, hardened and coarse, though seen by her but as in a dream.

"The villains have killed my auld master," cried Frisel, in deep grief.

"Oh! what is this?" exclaimed Elizabeth, throwing herself on her knees beside Monkshaugh, who lay on the floor insensible.

"Killed! What call ye killed?” said one of the men surlily. "We showed him our caption; and gude right, were he Duke o' Montrose instead of Laird o' Monkshaugh. But gi'e him a drap brandy, Francie. 'Od, a wee drap poured owre Craig's close, as we say in Edinburgh, will bring back a man's spirit like fanging a dry pump waal. And blame na us, Madam; we but showed the caption, and owre he popped as if shot by an air gun.”

"Leave the room, sirs," said Elizabeth; "and do you Francie take horse instantly and ride for aid, on your bare life, as you ever hope to prosper by the name of Grahame."

"Small need of that counsel," returned Frisel. "But, oh, gin Captain Wolfe Grahame were here to stand his ain; for we are feckless folk at the best !"

"O, that he were !" thought Elizabeth.-She bathed the temples and chafed the hands of poor Monkshaugh, who was lifted to a couch; and watched his recovery with the most intense interest. He began to move his 66 eyes.- Leave the room I command you," said she to the men, in a low but firm tone. "You have authority to arrest, but surely not to do murder."