inwardly resolved to
live single on his account, even if no further accounts were received of
William M'Pherson. But her father in the meantime died of a fever; and
her mother was compelled to remove from the farm to the village of
Dunkeld, where, in order to support herself and her lovely daughter, she
set up a little shop with a small sum which her husband and she had
saved, and was highly respected by all who knew her. In the meantime,
the parish schoolmaster, an excise officer, and a wealthy sheep-farmer,
all solicited Helen's hand; but she lent a deaf ear to all these offers,
still thinking, and speaking, and dreaming about her William.

One day, when she was standing at the shop-door, she observed a crowd
gathered about a horse and gig, out of which a person had just been
thrown, and was taken up as was feared lifeless. Helen, from motives of
humanity, rushed into the crowd to make inquiries, and saw the person
carried into an adjoining apothecary's shop; there he was immediately
bled, and, to the infinite satisfaction of all, had begun to recover.
The fact turned out to be, that he had been stunned by the fall on his
head, but no concussion or fracture had taken place. The gentleman, she
learned, had been put to bed, but was mighty unruly, as he insisted upon
pursuing his journey that very evening into the Highlands; and a
post-chaise, with two horses and a steady driver, had been brought to
the apothecary's door, and the traveller was passing into it, with his
head and arm tied up, when all at once Helen uttered a scream, and stood
trembling betwixt him and the conveyance. It was her own William,
returned from sea--to which he had again fled--and making all despatch
to reach Denhead, as he had learned, on his way towards the Highlands,
the fate that had overtaken the bridegroom, Laird M'Wharry. Now, reader,
you and I part--I can do no more for you; for, if you cannot far better
conceive than I can describe what followed, you can be no reader of
mine--you will never have perused the story at all. William was now
comfortably circumstanced, pensioned, and dismissed the service; and the
last time I had a week's fishing at Amalrie, I spent my evenings and
nights under his roof. He is now, like myself, a grandfather; and Helen,
though not quite so young as she was some thirty or forty years ago, is
still in my mind a perfect beauty, and has blessed her husband, during a
pretty long life, with all that kind husbands can