which life is heir to, all might and did
enter there. Death alone was barred without.

Sadly her maidens listened to her heart breaking appeals, to the spirit
of Munro, her unwed husband, the murdered bridegroom of her young life,
to come to her aid from the land of shadows and of silence. They knew
her story of the fifty years of long ago, and they pitied and grieved
with her, wondering at the constancy of her woman's heart.

Still more sadly did they listen to her appeals to be carried out from
the castle to the edge of the precipice where the power of the spell
ceased, there to look for, meet and welcome death; but they knew not the
story of the spell, and they deemed her mad with grief.

Terrified at last by her appeals to the dead, with whom she seemed to
hold continual conversation, and who seemed to be present in the chamber
with them, though unseen, and partly, at length, worn out with her
unceasing importunities, and partly to gratify the whim, as they
considered it, of the sufferer, tremblingly they agreed to obey her
requests and to carry her forth to the edge of the cliff. A frightened
band, they bore the Lady May, lying on her couch, smiling with hope and
blessing them for thus consenting. Over the threshold, over the
drawbridge, her eyes fixed on the heavens, brightened as they proceeded.
Hope flushed with hectic glow upon her pale suffering face, grateful
thanks broke from her lips. Hastening their steps they passed through
the gate, wound along the hill side, and as the broad expanse of ocean
with the fresh wind curling it into wavelets burst upon the sight, a
flash of rapture beamed on her countenance; a cry of joy rushed from her
pallid lips--their feeble burden grew heavier. A murmur of welcoming
delight was uttered to some glorious presence, unseen by the maidens,
and all became hushed eternally. The Lady May lay on her couch a
stiffening corpse. The spell of Cadboll had been broken at last. A
MacLeod inhabited it no more, and decay and ruin seized on the hoary
pile of which now scarcely a vestige remains to tell of the former
extent and feudal strength of Castle Cadboll.

(_To be continued._)

THE OLD CLAYMORE.

This is the claymore that my ancestors wielded,
This is the old blade that oft smote the proud foe;
Beneath its bright gleam all of home hath been shielded,
And oft were our title-deeds signed with its blow.
Its hilt hath been circ