herited in consequence of the unexpected demise of three nearer heirs. He was an exceedingly proud man, and specially proud of his descent from a family so ancient and so honorable. As long as his sword was his only fortune he had been reticent on the subject, but he was very much inclined to magnify his ancestors when he became their representative. For he considered himself high-steward of the Blair-Rodney interests; he was to guard their honor, and to increase their wealth and local importance.

He assumed this charge with an exaggerated idea of the value of money; for the lesson he had learned from a long life of straits and struggles was-that honor, valor, and noble birth were shorn of their proper glory if they were linked with poverty. He had talked differently when he was a poor man, for he had felt differently, and his change of sentiment expressed nothing worse than a change of circumstances. He was a man to whom the highest duty was the highest ideal. When he had worn the sword, absolute obedience and invincible valor was the rule of his life. Now that the honor of his ancestors and the welfare of his descendants were in his hands, he was actuated by an almost painful sense of his responsibility.

"I must leave the estate better than I found it, Dorinda," he would say to his wife. "To simply enjoy it, would be dishonorable. I could as little do it as I could have idled in barracks when I ought to have been out with my troop, keeping the frontier."

Fortunately, he had a wife after his own heart. Mrs. Rodney never forgot, even in her dreams, that she was the daughter of a Highland family whose antiquity was unfathomable. The Rodneys might have been earls of Fife in the mythical reign of Cor

bred the First; but how much more ancient were the MacDonalds? Did they not take possession of Morven, even at the very time Julius Cæsar was fighting the painted warriors of Southern Britain? She was a tall, slender woman, usually dressed in the MacDonald tartan. Her face was grave, her manner high-bred, and free alike from arrogance and familiarity—a woman of strong purpose and of firm will.

She had lost three sons in India, and though a religious person, this was an affliction she found it difficult to forgive the Almighty. For though her daughters were dear to her, she recognized that they were but "second bests" for the great purpose of the family honor and interest. Both were unknown quantities, and they might want to marry unsatisfactory people. Certainly Bertha was as yet considerate, affectionate, and obedient, but how would her character stand the test of a lover? She had even now occasional fits of stubbornness, and these might indicate qualities undeveloped, and of which Bertha herself was hardly conscious.

As for the elder daughter, Scotia, she was a more certain anxiety. No woman as conservative as Mrs. Rodney could regard without fear, and a certain disapproval, a girl so unconventional as Scotia Rodney. Her very beauty was a trial. It was so unusual, so unfamiliar, so almost insolent in its defiance of the family type and traditions. Whence had come the soul that fashioned that tall, stately form, and that large, exquisite head, with its wonderful length of red hair, waving and curling and radiating light like an aureole? How should her eyes be such celestial blue-blue of the day, not of the night-instead of the traditional brown or black of the family? And in

such a miserable world, full of sin, and of suffering as the penalty of sin, was not Scotia's gay, joyous temper indiscreet, unfeeling perhaps, indeed, something worse?

One evening, in the early spring of 1842, Mrs. Rodney was occupying her mind with such thoughts, the while her hands were laboriously working the family crest on some fine damask napkins. The lingering glooms of twilight brood long in that latitude, and she knew that the Colonel and his daughters were not likely to return from their walk, until the gray, pale lights were all dark. So she sat still, sometimes drawing the needle through with a calm, regular intentness, sometimes dropping her hands upon her lap, and allowing her eyes to look far out, and to see things which were invisible. For beyond the garden, and beyond the park and the meadows, she saw a great gray bowlder, called the "Stone of the Writing," and she felt certain that her husband and children were before it.

She divined truly. The Colonel, also, was speaking in a loud, yet monotonous voice, reciting words which he evidently knew as well as he knew his own name. Yet they were not intelligible to any one but himself; though the difference between the majestic Latin and the shrill, sibilant Gaelic was sufficiently marked to apprise Scotia when one passed into the other.

As soon as the Colonel ceased speaking, she said: "Who graved the inscription, father? To what does it refer? I know that you have been reciting in Latin and Gælic, but of your meaning, I know nothing at all."

"Nor do I," said Bertha, "though, I dare say, it is something about Fingal or Ossian."

The

"Children, it is the title-deed to our estate. first holders of Blair-Rodney won it, and held it with their swords; they would have thought a parchment deed a disgrace. But when Rodney stood by the Bruce, and received this land in reward, he graved his right upon this everlasting rock."

"But have we no parchments, father?" asked Bertha. "If there should come question of our right, how would the stone witness be taken to Edinburgh Court?"

"My dear, you are not the first of your race to foresee that difficulty. James Rodney, in Queen Mary's reign, won the Queen's favor, and asked and received from her the parchment which secures in all courts our right. Then the men of Blair-Rodney no longer picked out the letters with their sword points. Some of the holders did indeed keep the old record clear; others let the moss and lichen cover it. I have just had it restored. It was only finished this afternoon, and I was impatient to show it to you. I fear you do not share my enthusiasm."

"It is the grandest thing in our keeping, father," and Scotia turned a face radiating pride and pleasure toward the Stone of Witness. "I shall come here very often, and never once without calling to remembrance the men whose valor and loyalty won our right, and whose fingers cut in the gray rock the record of it. If one could only pray for the dead, I would always say here a prayer for their everlasting peace."

"Scotia! How can you think of such an awful thing? To pray for the dead! You know that is rank popery!" And Bertha regarded her sister with unqualified dissent and disapproval.

"These early Blairs and Rodneys were papists, of course, Bertha. I dare say they would be grateful for the prayer."

"Scotia Rodney! If the minister could only hear you!"

"What has the minister to do with my prayers?"then more softly and solemnly-"who can interfere between a soul and its Maker? To suppose that any minister understands a relation so personal is indeed popery of the rankest kind.”

"Children, we will leave theology alone. What can we say for our dead kindred? They are gone to the mercy of The Merciful. They know the grand secret, now-all of them."

"If they could only make themselves visible, father, what a host they would be! Soldiers with banners, and claymores, and horses fleet as the wind!"

"Men become spirits, but horses do not. You should be careful, and not let your imagination run to such lengths, sister. It is really wicked!"

"If the Bible be true, Bertha, there are horses in heaven; chariots of fire, horses and horsemen thereof! John saw them, and Elisha saw them. Isaiah says, the beasts honor God. David says, they pray to Him for food; and when God made a covenant with man after the flood, He also made a covenant with every living creature. Human beings think a great deal too much of themselves, and a great deal too little of God's other creatures."

"The world is made for man, Scotia."

"Pardon me, dear father, if I dare to think a little different. Is the rain and the sunshine sent for man only? Are they not also sent for the trees and the herbage? Are the trees and the herbage for man