stranger was found in the lake. Sometimes the churchgoers, lingering in the Kirkyard, would point reverently to the small tablet that marked the resting place of the mysterious stranger.

Some years have elapsed since she passed that bourne from whence no one e'er returns. As we turn to the young charge of Mrs. Davidson he has grown to be a healthy muscular young man, with a mind quick and apt. At the parish school his ability was marked, and, in consequence Mr. Simpson, the schoolmaster, and Mr. Farquhar, the parish minister, resolved to send him to Aberdeen University. Here he distinguished himself in classics and literature, but being of an imaginative and artistic temperament, mathematics did not appeal to him. His strongest passion was painting. During his vacations he was constantly engaged in this work. He excelled in portrait painting. John and Janet Davidson were jubilant when they found themselves immortalized on canvas. Janet's prophecy had come true that her Ronald "was a lad o' mony parts." His fame had spread beyond his local surroundings, and Janet had not infrequently to open the gallery to distinguished visitors. His university education perhaps had suffered not a little because of his extreme love of art.

Hill and vale, mountain and stream, loch and rippling brook were ever to him food for reflection and meditation. For the close and severe student he had little sympathy. When his fellow students, and roommates were pouring over Euclid and the classics, he was roaming. He was a dreamer. When his friends were asleep, he was sketching. And it was a vivid realistic picture he threw on the canvas of his industrious friends. He loved his art, for art's sake, but more he wished to do honor to his old friends, and those who had assisted him in his hour of need. His fame should be theirs also.

He was nearer the goal of his ambition than even he himself had realized. The Brig of Balgownie, by moonlight, had at once brought him into national prominence. Into this picture he had thrown his finest energy, and his concentrated geniu. It absorbed him, it controlled him. was lost to the world. While engaged on this picture his landlady, Mrs. Black, often became alarmed. One night she was in

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despair she thought he was lost. She had boys of her own once, and she loved the dreamer. As the wanderer returned he found Mrs. Black and his companions in his room. In his hurried departure he had forgotten to put away the Lovers of Classics, and to this picture all eyes were turned. Mrs. Black was delighted, his roommates, however, were inclined to be angry for his brush had been terribly severe. He had to defend himself. "Perhaps I have exaggerated a little," remarked Ronald, "but really, gentlemen, I think you are missing much that book learning will never give you. There is much in the heart-throb of Nature, and very much in social intercourse among your fellow-men, and, it seems to me you are foolishly ignoring both. Men were born to help each other, and to enjoy each other's society. This lost then a convent life might have some attraction. I am called a dreamer, an idealist, and yet I love Nature, and enjoy my fellow-men."

Censure soon gave place to unstinted praise, however, as the young artist withdrew the draperies from his masterpiece, and his roommates for the first time acknowledged the genius of the dreamer. Indifference gave place to admiration, nay even to praise.

And his fame was growing! One evening, while enjoying his pipe, he heard a tap at the door. As he opened it he immediately recognized the Jew, for often had he stood at the window of the picture-dealer and admired the works of the masters.

"Pardon me for intruding,' said the Jew. "but I have heard of your work, and I may be of service to you."

"Thank you kindly," said Ronald, "I chall be glad to show you what I have been doing, and if you find merit in my work, I shall be glad to make a deal, as I am thinkng of going abroad."

"True genius," said the Jew, "but your name is comparatively unknown, and I shall have to assume some risk in launchng your pictures on the world. I shall give you fifty pounds for your best work." "That is beyond my expectation," said Ronald.

The old Jew rubbed his hands gleefully, and only regretted that he had not sooner made the acquaintance of this modest young man. The first picture the Jew sold at a large profit, and soon returned to

make an offer of four hundred pounds for the whole collection, which was readily accepted. With this sum, Ronald was enabled to go to London, Paris, Dresden and Rome. Before starting he visited the village of his childhood, and his foster parCongratulations reached him even in that remote corner, and John and Janet were proud of their boy.

On the morning he was to depart, Mrs. Davidson narrated the story of his mother's death, and handed him his mother's locket, rings, and other articles which she had left in the care of her old nurse, on that most trying and eventful night. The farewells were tender for Mrs. Davidson loved her Ronald as if he had been her own child.

During his stay in London, and while. admiring a work of art in the British Museum, he overheard a conversation which was not without keen interest to him.

"Do you observe that young man, Alice," said a military looking gentleman, "his face strongly reminds me of your mother. Ah, I forget, I never kept my promise to reveal my past history."

That night in the library, Lord Chislehurst opened his whole heart to his daughter, who seemed deeply saddened and grieved, but she soon recovered, for she loved her father dearly.

"Yes, the army almost ruined me. I was disowned by my father. In my distress I married your mother, who could not possibly live happily with me. Many years ago she slipped away and went out of my life quietly, suddenly, and I have never been able to find the least trace of her. That, with my father's death seemed to brace me, and I made one heroic struggle. I paid off all debts on my father's estate, and, to-day, the name is honored as of old. The rest you know."

"I would give all the world to see my mother," said Alice, “and a brother would be the dream of my life."

"You may some day," said her father, "at any rate, let us hope that all will yet be well."

While this conversation was going on, Ronald was on his way to Paris. In short he visited many of the European cities and spent most of his time in their Art Galleries. In his quieter moments the conversation which he had heard in the British

museum seemed to haunt him. Had he seen his father, his sister?

After a residence of some years abroad, and with his fame as an artist established, he resolved once more to visit the friends of his youth and childhood in the far north. On his return from Italy he spent a few days in London. While here he was strolling one day in Hyde Park, but so absorbed that he did not notice a military gentleman and his companion, a young lady, longingly scrutinizing his face. At last they met squarely, and Lord Chislehurst made up his mind that this young face should not again escape him, for it had haunted him since last he saw it.

"Pardon me, sir," said the elder man, "but I am almost compelled to ask your name, your face so reminds me of the noblest woman I ever knew.”

The young man somewhat embarrassed, bowed politely, and replied courteously, "My name was given me by my foster mother, Mrs. Davidson, of Scotland, and I knew of no other than that of Ronald Davidson till within a few years ago. It was then I learned of my mother's death, whose real name was

"Chislehurst," remarked the older man. "Yes, that is my name." And again the elder broke in with a flood of emotion, "and I am your father, and this is your sister, Alice."

"And your mother," asked Lord Chislehurst?

"She lies in the Kirkyard in the village of Old Deer, where loving hands paid the last offices of respect over her remains." The fuller narrative Ronald reserved just then.

When sorrow had given place to gladness, and the deep and tender flow of emotion had subsided, arrangements were fully completed that they should never again be separated. The Chislehurst home is now ideal and not in all England can be found a more devoted father, or two hearts that love so intensely as Ronald and his sister, Alice. The Chislehursts visit Old Deer every autumn, and the declining years of John and Janet Davidson are bright in the extreme. And Ronald is still Mrs. Davidson's boy, for fame has not turned his head, he is every inch one of Nature's noblemen.-(Presbyterian Manse, Brooklyn Station, Baltimore, Md.)

As a story-teller Sir Walter Scott has no rival.

He was a novelist of the highest order; he studied the past, he lived in the past, he loved nature. He said to Washington Irving: "If I could not see the heather once a year, I think I should die." He was of an historical cast of mind, an exponent of the Stuarts, of the borderraiders (his ancestors), the Covenanters and the Highland chiefs. He wove history into his novels, and made them live in the hearts and minds of the people. Lord Cockburn said that he "admired Sir Walter for his common sense more than for his genius." The late Dr. Thomas Guthrie made a point of reading three books annually, the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress and Waverley.

There are indeed few novels that can stand the test of being read the second time. The novelists of Sir Walter's time and after are almost forgotten, such as Margaret Maitland, Margaret Olyphant Margaret Olyphant and Mrs. Hamilton. Robert Louis Stevenson, the founder of the modern school of fiction, with his fine classical style, is seldom read the second time. Barrie, the author of Auld Licht Idylls, comes next to Stevenson, but is now "playing to the gallery"; Crockett, the author of The Stickit

Minister and The Raiders, Ian Maclaren, who wrote The Days of Auld Lang Syne and Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush, are seldom mentioned. And the other "Kailyard Writers," as Thomas Scott, Hepburn, Charles Douglas Brown, author of The Green Shutters, David Storrar Meldrum, who wrote The Conquest of Charlotte, Fiona Macleod, author of The Mountain Lovers, and Neil Macleod, author of John Splendid, are shelved after the first reading. But Scott's works, consisting of twenty-eight volumes, are eagerly sought and read by all lovers of books, have been translated into many languages, and are studied in the public schools.

The glory of the Waverley novels has thrown the other prose writings of Scott into the shade, yet there is enough in his collected miscellaneous prose works to have established the fame of any less illustrious author. Since the Reformation there are only four great Scottish writers vho are entitled to the first rank; they are David Hume, Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Thomas Carlyle.

"Modern historical novelists," says Lang, "though they write from the results of 'cram' and no from a mind already charged with history, try at least to sub

ject themselves to the actual circumstances of the past, and not to subject historical circumstances to themselves. Scott I was born to make all the world familiar with the life and history of an ancient kingdom." "Nature sent Burns," writes Lockhart, "to make Scottish peasant life immortal, and Scott to give immortality to chivalrous Scottish romance."

Sir Walter Scott was born August 15, 1771, on the third floor of the College Wvnd, Edinburgh; more is known of his childhood and later years than of his boyhood and early manhood. At the age of eighteen months he was seized with a teething fever, and in less than a week it developed into a lameness in his right leg, from which he never fully recovered. Shortly afterward he was sent to the home of his grandparents in Roxburghshire, and intrusted to the care of his grandmother and an aunt. Here he stayed for several years, reading and listening to border legends, which formed the foundation of his future work. This period he describes in the following lines:

"And ever by the winter hearth,

Old tales I heard of woe and mirth,
Of lovers' slights, of ladies' charms,
Of witches' spells, of warriors' arms,
Of patriot battles won of old

By Wallace Wight and Bruce the Bold,
Of later fields of feud and fight,
When, pouring from their Highland height,
The Scottish clans in headlong sway,
Had swept the scarlet ranks away."

At the age of four he could read, and was taught by his aunt to read aloud; he had a remarkable memory. At the age of six Alison Cockburn heard him read, and afterwards described him as "the most extraordinary genius of a boy that she had ever seen; he read like Garrick." He was fond of draw-. ing and painting, but had no ear for music. Someone, finding him with his books, asked him why he did not play with the other boys; he replied: "Oh, you don't know how ignorant these boys are."

He attended the Edinburgh High School, and in his thirteenth year matriculated at the college. It was at about this time that he met Robert Burns, and was able to enlighten him as to the authorship of some disputed lines. During his student days he showed no sign of a great writer; he gave little heed to his text-books, and yet in

the Lay of the Last Minstrel. Auld Watt was a raider, and his son, William, was a brave, handsome fellow, and, like his father, noted for cattle-stealing. On one of his raids he was captured by Sir Gideon Murray in the banks of the Elebank. When taken to the castle prison, he was offered by Lady Murray the alternative of being hung or marrying her ugly daughter, Muckle-mouthed Meg. He preferred the marriage altar to the gallows tree. said that Sir Walter was the inheritor of this muckle-mouth.

It is

On the female side, he descended from the MacDougalls of Makerston, one of the oldest families in Scotland. He was always interested in his pedigree, and always referred to it with pride. Lockhart says that "in Scott met the blood of Highlander and Lowlander, Celt, Teuton and Norman; there are few in Scotland who could trace their blood to so many stocks of historical distinction."

In his fifteenth year he was a lawyer's apprentice, and in 1792 was admitted to the bar. About this time he met and fell in

love with Lady Louisa Stuart, but her accepted lover was Sir William Forbes. His first appearance in court was in a criminal trial in Jedburgh. He was successful in helping a notorious poacher and sheepstealer to escape punishment. "You are a lucky scoundrel," whispered Scott to his client when the verdict was announced. “I am just of the same mind," said the poacher. "I'll send you a hare in the morning."

In 1797 he married Miss Charlotte Carpenter, and two years later was appointed Sheriff of Selkirk; six years later he was made one of the principal clerks of the Session.

Early in 1802 he published The Border Minstrelsy, which show the result of his extensive reading, and his skill in collecting ballads and making new ones; this work was completed by a third volume the next year. The Lay of the Last Minstrel appeared in 1805; the same year he received a legacy of $30,000 from his uncle, and became a partner in the printing business of James Ballantyne. Marmion, published 1808, was composed during gallops among the hills of Tweedside, and Lady of the Lake, 1810, was written after a visit to the Highlands the year before. Scott was offered the poet laureateship, but refused it, and obtained it for his friend, Southey. In 1812, when his annual income was about $8,000, he bought the estate which he named "Abbotsford."

In poetry, Scott is the Scottish Homer. "He was not majestic like Johnson, nor profound like Wordsworth, nor artless like Burns, nor passionate like Byron. Still he did for Scotland what Dante did for Italy." The Lady of the Lake is a fine specimen of his poetic genius. Lord Soulis and Cout of Keilder are claimed to be the best of his ballads, and Rokeby is considered by critics the best of the poems. "Sir Walter's war songs," says Wilson, "rank with the greatest of all war poems; they make the very coward fearless."

But Scott, feeling himself beaten by Byron, turned his attention to prose. In 1814 he set to work upon an old manuscript which he had begun in 1805; it had been missing for several years, and accidentally came to light. The result of his labor was Waverley, published anonymously, which marked a stage in his liter

ary career; it was followed by a series of novels of which the world has never seen the equal.

In 1822 he became a baronet; when he went to London he was the lion of society; wherever he went he was welcomed with open arms by the greatest in the world's affairs, and as yet he was not acknowledged as the author of the Scotch novels. The secret was confined to about twenty persons, and it was not till February, 1827, that the mystery was made known. “The 'Waverley Novels'," says Thomson, "contain a picture-gallery of description and incident and characters heroic or ludicrous, tender to pawky, which entitles Scott to rank next to Shakespeare, and with no serious competitor but Dickens to the role of British creative genuis."

Scott and Carlyle never met, though Carlyle, while a student in Edinburgh, often saw Scott. But he met Carlyle's friend, Edward Irving, at a levee of the Commissioners of the General Assembly, in Edinburgh. Scott wrote: "I could hardly keep my eyes off him while we were at the table. He put me in mind of the devil disguised as an angel of light, so ill did that obliquity of vision harmonize with the dark, tranquil features of his face, resembling that of our Saviour in Italian pictures."

In 1826 the crash came, when the firm of Ballantyne failed, with liabilities amounting to £117,000; for the amount of this indebtedness, Scott as partner was responsible; instead of taking refuge in bankruptcy, he devoted the rest of his life to paying his creditors. He gave his life to pay his debt. He paid £70,000 between 1826 and 1832; the balance was wiped away by his copyrights. He died September 21, 1832, at the age of sixty-one, a broken-down and helpless man. After his loss of property he would often get up at five o'clock and write as many as sixty pages of a novel a day. On one occasion he walked fifty miles from Edinburgh and back again to obtain the fragment of a ballad from the mouth of some old person who knew it. His hair was as white as snow at the age of forty-seven.

The character of Scott is a simple one. He was an honest, hard-working man; he was a strong and courageous man; his life is an inspiration. He was a Christian, kind and considerate towards his competi