ill to attend prayers. God bless you, my ain dawtie, what's a' this?"
added she, kissing the brow of the girl, whose eyes opened to perceive
the retiring form of her cousin.

If Barbara Comyn revealed to her good aunt the cause of her fright and
consequent illness, it is very certain that Miss Henny kept the secret.
Next morning, indeed, though with a wan face, Barbara appeared at
prayers; and Mr. Comyn had concluded reading a portion of the Gospel,
when a paper, falling out of the Bible, arrested his attention for a
moment. Only for a moment, however; for, mentally supplicating
forgiveness for that involuntary wandering of his thoughts from the act
of worship in which he was engaged, the good man knelt and prayed with
fervor. This sacred duty terminated, they sat down to the
breakfast-table, and then the minister slowly opened the paper, glanced
over it, turned deadly pale, and exclaimed,

"The great and good God be around us! Let not the delusions of Satan
prevail, but keep from us the evil spirits that make us see things that
are not!"

"What is the matter, brither?" cried the wondering Miss Henny, whilst,
as though chained to the table, Barbara neither moved nor spoke.

"Take this, woman," said he, in a tremulous voice, "and read it to me,
that I may be sure the same awful words that meet my sight also meet
yours."

And the astonished Henrietta, taking the paper, read what follows:

Last night, after leaving you, I was stopped by your sexton, my
landlord, David Bain, who led me out of the highroad to the
Nut-hole, under pretence of showing me a large salmon which he had
hooked but could not land. He there felled me to the earth, robbed
me, and flung my body into the river Dee. Pray for the soul of

SIMON BRUCE.

When the awe-struck Henrietta ceased, she found that Barbara had
fainted; and the minister, in a whirl of distracting thoughts to which
he was unaccustomed, ascribing his child's swoon to terror, placed the
ominous paper in the Bible, and determined to make known the whole
mysterious case at once to Mr. Craigie, the chief magistrate of
Aberdeen. Not for a single instant did Mr. Comyn suspect a hoax, or
imagine the affair to be only the mischievous trick of some idler.
Indeed, such was not likely; the times were superstitious, nor were
there any persons connected or at variance with the family who were
liable to be suspe