sweetness withdrawn, until the whole flavour of the draught had been changed without her perceiving it.

Things were in this state when, on the first of August, the startling news of Lord Dundee's victory at Killicrankie fell like a thunderbolt upon the good town of Edinburgh. The too confident anticipations which had attended the march of Mackay, the officer sent by William's government to oppose the furious raids of Dundee and his Highland army, having been thus summarily dashed to the ground, the public mind rushed, as is always the case, to the opposite extreme, and during four-and-twenty hours terror and confusion reigned rampant, especially over those who had most reason to expect ample chastisement for their complicated treasons, and least cause to hope for leniency at the hands of the fiery Jacobite chief, whom many were aware of having personally wronged beyond forgiveness. The picture of these different fears, and the shameless timeserving which they brought to light once more in numbers of the most prominent individuals who then occupied the highest seats in the synagogue, has been preserved to us in various memoirs of the time; and the universal consternation occasioned by this single success, with the extensive consequences it was expected instantly to entail, are the most convincing argument that could be adduced of the estimation in which were held the genius and energy of the man who thus kept a nation suspended upon his breath.

Others, however, while rating him still higher, discovered in that very opinion an antidote to their fears.

"There is no danger," is reported to have been the comment of Sir John Dalrymple; "had Dundee been alive he would have brought us the first news of his own victory."

The suggestion proved correct. The rumours of Lord Dundee's descent into the Lowlands had scarcely time to spread when they were contradicted by positive intelligence of his death.

That intelligence was carried to Alice by Janet, and received by the latter with little more emotion than she displayed in speaking of her own. She even half forestalled the sentence in which, with mingled relief and admiring regret, the old dame was about to describe the fate of the brilliant but ruthless soldier, whom, as a loyalist and episcopalian, Janet had always regarded with intense respect; but to the issue of whose turbulent and warlike schemes she looked forward with much distress of mind.

"No need to tell me any more —Lord Dundee has fallen. I knew it already," she said simply, without comment, tear, or sigh.

Much pleased at having so successfully imparted a piece of intelligence which, from Alice's intimacy with his relations and personal acquaintance with himself, might have been very agitating in her weak state, Janet bustled away to discharge some household duties; the girl turned her pale face to the beautiful sunlight, and glanced upwards, saying to herself

"One more thread to break! then, Alice, home!"

And from that day, in her brightest moods, as in

her saddest and they were very rare → there was an expression on her countenance which was a perpetual warning to her old nurse that she would not stay long there. Mental pain seemed to have lost its power to injure; but physical exertion was now beyond her-the most she could do was to creep from her bedchamber, leaning on Janet's arm, and sit all day long in her comfortable window-nook, unable to read more than a few minutes at once in her little Bible, but always ready with smile and look to meet her old friend's anxious eye. There was a glad serenity in that look, which often gave an additional pang to the good but narrow heart, which, sorrowing so deeply itself, smarted at the thought that no encumbrance of love for her could avail to clog the heavenward aspirations of a spirit ready and willing to wing its flight. She had bestowed on Alice all the love her heart contained; her calmer judgment told her how honestly and gratefully it was repaid, but she knew that others shared what few thoughts the girl still dedicated to earthly attachments, and this stung her sometimes with jealous grief, sometimes with shame for that jealousy, and a redoubled zeal in all that could hide its workings from Alice, to whom she was certain the mere suspicion of such sentiments would bring nothing but surprise and regret.

About a fortnight after the announcement of Lord Dundee's death, an overdue letter from Lady Glencarrig arrived; but as communication was then in its infancy, and the countess's epistle was dated nearly a month back, it could not of course contain any men

tion of a misfortune equally ruinous to the King's cause and distressing to his relatives. With quiet tears of affection and pleasure did Alice peruse her warm assurances of alarm and regret at her adopted daughter's dangerous illness, and of her intention of setting out for Scotland the very instant Flora's precarious state of health would permit, to remove Alice at once and for ever to the home which was longing to receive her. Enclosed was a letter from Flora urging Alice not to lose a moment in rejoining them-even, if possible, before the countess could arrive to accompany her. The fatal intelligence which had depressed the spirits of every true Jacobite in Scotland had not been transmitted to France at the period of inditing, although later than the date of the countess's letter, and Lady Flora's overflowed with the gladsome gaiety of her bright nature-all the joys of the adored and happy wife and expectant mother. From these two centres of pure delight—the young husband so truly loved for his own sake, the coming treasure dear at once for its own and his the whole felicity of her sunny life seemed to spring; falling crowns and tottering thrones were little to her, so that they spared those household gods! It was well and right that they should be foremost-husband and child before brother and friend; yet there was still love enough in that wide, genial heart to give even these such a portion as might satisfy the most grasping self-seeker. She besought Alice to do her best to come to her-to come in time for the baptism of her expected darling, who was to bear the doubly dear names of husband and brother, or those

as dear of mother and sister; and with a thousand sweet expressions of affection, so delicate and charming that it seemed marvellous how inanimate paper could convey them, Flora bade her adieu.

To this letter all Janet's remonstrances could not prevent Alice from writing an answer herself-to no one else could she entrust the acknowledgment of a friendship which had taken her at the cradle only to quit her at the grave. But with all her resolution it was weary work, and tears often chased each other down her cheeks when she allowed her imagination to dwell upon their grief at receiving such an answer to their hopeful proposals. Still the letter itself was beautiful in the saintly joy and resignation which had inspired its every expression; the dying girl, snatched away in the flower of her youth, at the moment when a new era seemed opening in her existence, in which wealth, comfort, and a solicitude almost maternal would have conspired to obliterate the effects of early misfortune— Alice, whom every hour was bringing nearer to what is called an untimely end, did not cast one longing glance upon the destiny of her foster-sister. Waveless and bright as seemed the ocean on which sweet Flora's bark was launched, it was still the open and treacherous sea; and, if a great tempest had indeed overtaken Alice, its fury had but hurried her more swiftly into the harbour. The shore was full in sight to her-how and when would her sister reach it?

The agitation produced by these ideas and others similar to them affected Alice so much as to prolong even harmfully the task she had undertaken. Janet