Menie, my dear, were the first, between you, to carry word of it to his mother, and her breaking her heart about her son. But Mrs Lithgow's gotten a letter from Johnnie noo, a' about how grand he is—and I hear he's paying a haill guinea by the week for his twa rooms, and seeing a' the great folk in the land-no to say that he's writing now the paper he ance printed, and is great friends with our Randy. Randy was aye awfu' particnlar of his company. I was saying mysel it was the best sign I heard of Johnnie Lithgow that Randall Home was taking him by the hand; I'm no meaning pride, Mrs Laurie. I'm sure I ken so weel it's a' his ain doing, and the fine nature his Maker gave him, that I aye say we've nae right to be proud; but it would be sinning folks' mercies no to ken-and I never saw a lad like Randall Home a' my days." Menie said nothing in this presence. Shy at all times to speak of Randall -before her own mother and his aunt it was a thing impossible, but she glanced up hastily with glowing eyes, and a flush of sudden colour, to meet Miss Janet's look. Miss Janet's face was full of affectionate pride and tenderness, but the good simple features had always a little cloud of humility and deprecation hovering over them. Miss Janet knew herself liable to attack on many points, knew herself very homely, and not at all worthy of the honour of being Randall's aunt, and had been snubbed and put down a great many times in the course of her kindly life-so Miss Janet was wont to deliver her modest sentiments with a little air of half-troubled propitiatory fear. Mrs Laurie made little response. She was busy with her work at the moment, and, not without little angles of temper for her own share, did not always quite join in this devout admiration of Randall Home. Menie, "thinking shame," said nothing either, and, in the momentary silence which ensued, Miss Janet's heart rose with a flutter of apprehension; she feared she had said something amiss -too much or too little; and Miss Janet's cheeks grew red under the abashed eyes which she bent so anxiously over the well-known pattern of Mrs Laurie's carpet. "I'm feared you're thinking it's a' vain glory that gars me speak," said Miss Janet, tracing the outline with her large foot; "and it's very true that ane deceives ane's-sel in a thing like this; but it's no just because he's our Randall, Mrs Laurie; and it's no that I'm grudging at Johnnie Lithgow for being clever-but I canna think he's like my ain bairn." "A merry little white-headed fellow, with a wisp of curls," said Mrs Laurie, good-humouredly-" No, he's not like Randall, Miss Janet-I think I'll answer for that as well as you; but we'll see them both, very likely, when we get to London. Strange things happen in this world," continued Menie's mother, drawing herself up with a little conscious pride and pique, which the accompanying smile showed her own half amusement with. "There's young Walter Wellwood of Kirkland will never be anything but a dull country gentleman, though he comes of a clever family, and has had every advantage; and here is a boy out of Kirklands parish-school taking up literature and learning at his own hand!" Miss Janet was slightly disturbed, and looked uneasy. Randall too had begun his career in the parish school of Kirklands: there was a suspicion in this speech of something derogatory to him. "But the maister in Kirklands is very clever, Mrs Laurie," said Miss Janet anxiously; "he makes grand scholars. When our Randall gaed to the grammar-school in Dumfries, the gentlemen a' made a wonder of him; and for a' his natural parts, he couldna have gotten on so fast without a guid teacher; and it's no every man could maister Randy. I mind at the time the gentlemen couldna say enough to commend the Dominie. I'll warrant they a' think weel of him still on account of his guid success, and the like of him deserves to get credit with his laddies. I'm sure Johnnie Lithgow, having had nae other instruction, should be very grateful to the maister." "The maister will be very proud of him," said Menie; "though they say in Kirklands that ever so many ministers have been brought up in the school. But never mind Johnnie Lithgow-everybody speaks of him. now; and, mother, you were to tell Miss Janet about when we are going away." "I think John will never look out of the end window mair," said Miss Janet. "I can see he's shifting his chair already-him that used to be so fond of the view; and I'm sure I'll be very dreary mysel, thinking there's naebody I ken in Burnside; but what if you dinna like London, Mrs Laurie? It's very grand, I believe, and you've lived in great towns before, and ken the ways of the world better than the like of me; but after a country life, I would think ane would weary of the toun; and if you do, will you come hame?" Mrs Laurie shook her head. "I was very well content in Burnside," she said. "With my own will I never would have left it, Miss Janet; but I go for good reasons, and not for pleasure; and my reasons will last, whether I weary or no. There's Menie must get masters, you know, and learn to be accomplished-or Miss Annie Laurie will put her to shame." "I dinna ken what she could learn, for my part," said Miss Janet affectionately, "nor how she could weel be better or bonnier, for a'body can see the genty lady-breeding Miss Menie's got; and there's naebody atween this and the hills needs to be telt of the kind heart and the pleasant tongue, and the face that every creature's blithe to see; and I'm sure I never heard a voice like her for singing; and a' the grand tunes she can play, and draw landscapes, and work ony kind of bonnie thing you like to mention. Didna you draw a likeness of Jenny, Miss Menie, my dear? And I'm sure yon view you took from the tap of our hill is just the very place itsel-as natural as can be; and, for my part, Mrs Laurie, I dinna ken what mortal could desire for her mair." Mrs Laurie smiled; but the mother was not displeased, though she did think it possible still to add to Menie's acquirements, if not to her excellence; and Menie herself went off laughing and blushing, fully resolved in her own mind to destroy forthwith that likeness wherein poor Jenny's "high shouther" figured with an emphasis and distinctness extremely annoying to the baffled artist, whose pencil ran away with her very often in these same much-commended drawings, and who was sadly puzzled in most cases how to make two sides of anything alike. And Menie knew her tunes were anything but grand, her landscapes not at all remarkable for truth yet Menie was by no means distressed by Miss Janet's simple-hearted praise. The evening was spent in much talk of the departure. July Home had followed her aunt, and sat in reverential silence listening to the conversation, and making a hundred little confidential communications of her own opinion to Menie, which Menie had some trouble in reporting for the general good. It was nine o'clock of the moonlight April night when the farmer of Crofthill came to escort his "womankind" home. The clear silent radiance darkened the distant hills, even while it lent a silver outline to their wakeful guardian range, and Menie came in a little saddened from the gate, where the father of her betrothed had grasped her hand so closely in his good-night. "No mony mair good-nights now," said John Home. "I'll no get up my heart the morn, though it is the first day of summer. You should have slipped up the hill the night to gather the dew in the morning, May; but I'll learn to think the May mornings darker than they used to be, when your ain month takes my bonnie lassie from Burnside. Weel, weel, ane's loss is another's gain; but I grudge you to London smoke, and London crowds. You must mind, May, my woman, and keep your hame heart." Your home heart, Menie-your heart of simple trust and untried quiet. Is it a good wish, think you, kind and loving though the wisher be? But Menie looks up at the sky, with something trembling faintly in her mind, like the quiver of this charmed air under the flood of light—and has note of unknown voices, faces, visions, coming in upon the calm of her fair youth, unknown, unfeared; and so she turns to the home lights again, with nothing but the sweet thrill of innocent expectation to rouse her, secure in the peace and tranquil serenity of this home heart of hers, which goes away softly, through the moonlight and the shadow, through the familiar gloom of the little hall, and into the comforts of the mother's parlour, singing its song of conscious happiness under its breath. CHAPTER IX. Left behind! July Home has dried her eyes at last; and out of many a childish fit of tears and sobbing, suddenly becomes silent like a child, and, standing on the road, looks wistfully after them, with her lips apart, and her breast now and then trembling with the swell of her half-subsided grief. The gentle May wind has taken out of its braid July's brown silky hair, and toys with it upon July's neck with a half derisive sympathy, as a big brother plays with the transitory sorrow of a child. But the faint colour has fled from July's cheek, except just on this one flushed spot where it has been resting on her hand; and with a wistful longing, her young innocent eyes travel along the vacant road. No one is there to catch this lingering look; and even the far-off sound, which she bends forward to hear, has died away in the distance. Another sob comes trembling up-another faint swell of her breast, and quiver of her lip-and July turns sadly away into the forsaken house, to which such a sudden air of emptiness and desolation has come; and, sitting down on the carpet by the window, once more bends down her face into her hands, and cries to her heart's content. These is no change in the parlour of Burnside-not a little table, not a single chair has been moved out of its place; yet it is strange to see the forlorn deserted look which everything has already learned to wear. Mrs Laurie's chair gapes with its open empty arms - Menie's stool turns drearily towards the wall- and the centre table stands out chill and prominent, cleared of all kindly litter, idle and presumptuous, the principal object in the room, no longer submitting to be drawn about here and there, to be covered or uncovered for anybody's pleasure. And, seated close into the window which commands the road, very silent and upright, shawled and bonneted, sits Miss Janet Home, who, perchance, since she neither rebukes nor comforts poor little weep And Jenny's busy feet waken no home-like echoes now in the bright kitchen, where no scrutiny, however keen, could find speck or spot to discredit Jenny. Instead of the usual genius of the place, a "strange woman" rests with some apparent fatigue upon the chair by the wall which flanks Jenny's oaken table, and, wiping her forehead as she takes off her bonnet, eyes at a respectful distance the fire, which is just now making a valorous attempt to keep up some heartiness and spirit in the bereaved domain which misses Jenny. The strange bonnet, with its gay ribbons, makes a dull reflection in the dark polish of the oak, but the warm moist hand of its owner leaves such a mark as no one ever saw there during the reign of Jenny; and Jenny would know all her forebodings of destruction to the furniture in a fair way for accomplishment, could she see how the new tenant's maid, sent forward before her mistress to take possession, spends her first hour in Burnside. But Jenny, far off and unwitting, full of a child's simplicity of wonder and admiration-yet sometimes remembering, with her natural impatience, that this delight and interest does not quite become her dignitytravels away-to Dumfries-to Edinburgh-to the new world, of which she knows as little as any child. And Menie Laurie, full of vigorous youthful spirits, and natural excitement, forgets, in half an hour, the heaviness of the leave-taking, and manages, with many a laugh and wreathed smile, to veil much wonder and curiosity of her own, under the unveilable exuberance of Jenny's. Mrs Laurie herself, clouded and careworn though she looks, and dreary as are her backward glances to the familiar hills of her own country, clears into amusement byand-by; and the fresh Mayday has done its work upon them all, and brightened the little party into univer sal smiles and cheerfulness, before the journey draws towards its end, and weariness comes in to restore the quiet, if not to restore the tears and sadness, with which they took their leave of home. "And this is the main street, I'll warrant," said Jenny, as Menie led her on the following morning over the bright pavement of Princes Street; " and I would just like to ken, Miss Menie, what a' thae folks doing outby at this time of the day? Business? havers! I'm no that great a bairn that I dinna ken the odds between a decent woman gaun an errand, and idle folk wandering about the street. Eh! but they are even-down temptations thae windows! The like of that now for a grand gown to gang to parties! And I reckon ye'll be seeing big folk yonder-away-and the Englishers are awfu' hands for grand claes. I dinna think ye've onything noo ye could see great company in, but that blue thing you got a twelvemonth since, and twa-three bits of muslin. Eh! Miss Menie, bairn, just you look at that!" And Menie paused, well pleased to look, and admired, if not so loudly, at least with admiration quite as genuine as Jenny's own. But as they passed on, Jenny's captivated eyes found every shop more glorious than the other, and Jenny's eager hands had fished out of the narrow little basket she carried, a long narrow purse of chamois leather, in which lay safe a little bundle of one-pound notes, prisoned in the extreme corners at either end. Jenny's fingers grew nervous as they fumbled at the strait enclosure wherein her humble treasure was almost too secure, and Jenny was tremulously anxious to ascertain which of all these splendours Menie liked best, a sublime purpose dawning upon her own mind the while. And now it is extremely difficult to draw Jenny up the steep ascent of the Calton Hill, and fix her wandering thoughts_upon the scene below. It is very fine, Jenny fancies; but after all, Jenny, who has been on terms of daily intimacy with Criffel, sees nothing startling about Arthur's Seat-which is only, like its southland brother, "a muckle hill"— whereas not even the High Street of Dumfries holds any faintest shadowing of the glory of these Princes Street shops; and Jenny's mind is absorbed in elaborate calculations, and her lips move in the deep abstraction of mental arithmetic, while still her fingers pinch the straitened corners of the chamois-leather purse. "I'll can find the house grand mysel. I ken the street, and I ken the stair, as weel as if I had lived in't a' my days," says Jenny eagerly, "Touts, bairn! canna ye let folk abee? I would like to hear wha would fash their heads with Jenny-and I saw a thing I liked grand in ane of the muckle shops. Just you gang your ways hame to your mamma, Miss Menie; there's nae fears of me." "But, Jenny, I'll go with you and help you to buy," said Menie. "I would like to see into that great shop myself." "Ye'll see't another time," said Jenny, coaxingly. "Just you gang your ain gate, like a good bairn, and let Jenny gang hers ance in her life. I'll let you see what it is after I've bought it but I'm gaun my lane the now. Now, Miss Menie, I'm just as positive as you. My patience! as if folk couldna be trusted to ware their ain siller and the mistress waiting on you, and me kens the house better than you! Now you'll just be a good bairn, and I'll take my ain time, and be in in half an hour." Thus dismissed, Menie had no resource but to betake herself with some laughing wonder to the lodging where Mrs Laurie rested after the journey of yesterday; while Jenny, looking jealously behind her to make sure that she was not observed, returned to a long and loving contemplation of the brilliant silk gown which had caught her fancy first. "I never bought her onything a' her days, if it wasna ance that bit wee coral necklace, that she wore when she was a little bairn-and she aye has it in her drawer yet, for puir auld Jenny's sake," mused Jenny at the shop window, "and I'm no like to need muckle siller mysel, unless there's some sair downcome at hand. I wouldna say but I'll be feared at the price, wi' a' this grand shop to keep up-but I think I never saw onything sae bonnie, and I'll just get up a stout heart, and gang in and try." But many difficulties beset this daring enterprise of Jenny's. First, the impossibility of having brought to her the one magnificent gown of gowns then a fainting of horror at the price then a sudden bewilderment and wavering, consequent upon the sight of a hundred others as glorious as the first. While Jenny mused and pondered with curved brow and closed lips, two or three very fine gentlemen, looking on with unrestrained amusement, awoke her out of her deliberations, and out of her first awe of themselves, into a very distinct and emphatic fuff of resentment, and Jenny's decision was made at last somewhat abruptly, in the midst of a smothered explosion of laughter, which sent her hasty short steps pattering out of the shop, in intense wrath. But in spite of Jenny's expanded nostrils, and scarcely restrainable vituperation, Jenny carried off triumphantly, in her arms, the gown of gowns; and Jenny's indignation did not lessen the swell of admiring pride with which she contemplated, pressed to her bosom tenderly, the white paper parcel wherein her gift lay hid. "Ye'll let me ken how you like this, Miss Menie," said Jenny, peremptorily thrusting the parcel into Menie's hand, at the door of her mother's room; " and see if some of your grand London mantua-makers canna make such a gown out of it as ye might wear ony place. Take it ben-I'm no wanting ye to look at it here." "But what is it?" asked Menie, wonderingly. "You have naething ado but open it and see," was the answer; "and ye can put it on on your birthday if you like that's the tenth of next month-there's plenty of time to get it made and I'll gang and ask thae strange folk about the dinner mysel." But neither message nor voice could reach Jenny for a full hour thereafter. Jenny was a little afraid of thanks, and could not be discovered in parlour or kitchen, though the whole "flat" grew vocal with her name. Penetrating at last into the depths of the dark closet where Jenny slept, Menie found her seated on her trunk, with her fingers in her ears; but this precaution had evidently been quite in effectual so far as Jenny's sharp sense of hearing was concerned. Menie Laurie put her own arms within the projected arm of the follower of the family, and drew her away to her mother's room. Like a culprit, faintly resisting, Jenny went. "I'm sure if I had kent ye would have been as pleased," said Jenny, when she had in some degree recovered herself, "ye might have gotten ane long ago; but ye'll mind Jenny when you put it on, and I'm sure it's my heart's wish baith it and you may be lang to the fore, when Jenny's gane and forgotten out o' mind. 'Deed ay, it is very bonnie. I kent I was a gey guid judge mysel, and it was the first ane I lighted on, afore we had been out of the house ten minutes-it's been rinning in my head ever since then." "But, Jenny, it must have been very expensive," said Mrs Laurie, quickly. "I warrant it was nae cheaper than they could help," said Jenny. "Eh! mem, the manners of themand a' dressed out like gentlemen, too. I thought the first ane that came to me was a placed minister, at the very least; and to see the breeding of them, nae better than as many hinds! Na, I would like to see the cottar lad in a' Kirklands that would have daured to make his laugh of me!" A few days' delay in Edinburgh gave Mrs Laurie space and opportunity of settling various little matters of business, which were necessary for the comfort of their removal; and then the little family embarked in the new steamer, which had but lately superseded the smack, with some such feelings of forlornness and excitement as Australian emigrants might have in these days. Jenny set herself down firmly in a corner of the deck, with her back against the bulwark of the ship, and her eyes tenaciously fixed upon a coil of rope near at hand. Jenny had a vague idea that this might be something serviceable in case of shipwreck, and with jealous care she watched it; a boat, too, swayed gently in its place above her-there was a certain security in being near it; but Jenny's soul was troubled to see Menie wandering hither and thither upon the sunny deck, and |