favoured
mound, and is scattered over the plain. We console ourselves with the
higher thought, that if Scotland is worse, the world is better. Yea,
even they by whom the offence came, and who have first to reap the woe
of that offence, because they did the will of God to satisfy their own
avarice in laying land to land and house to house, shall not reap their
punishment in having their own will, and standing therefore alone in the
earth when the good of their evil deeds returns upon it; but the tears
of men that ascended to heaven in the heat of their burning dwellings
shall descend in the dew of blessing even on the hearts of them that
kindled the fire.--'Something too much of this.'

Robert lifted the latch, and walked into the cottage. It was not quite
so strange to him as it would be to most of my readers; still, he had
not been in such a place before. A girl who was stooping by the small
peat fire on the hearth looked up, and seeing that he was lame, came
across the heights and hollows of the clay floor to meet him. Robert
spoke so faintly that she could not hear.

'What's yer wull?' she asked; then, changing her tone,--'Eh! ye're no
weel,' she said. 'Come in to the fire. Tak a haud o' me, and come yer
wa's butt.'

She was a pretty, indeed graceful girl of about eighteen, with the
elasticity rather than undulation of movement which distinguishes the
peasant from the city girl. She led him to the chimla-lug (the ear of
the chimney), carefully levelled a wooden chair to the inequalities of
the floor, and said,

'Sit ye doon. Will I fess a drappy o' milk?'

'Gie me a drink o' water, gin ye please,' said Robert.

She brought it. He drank, and felt better. A baby woke in a cradle on
the other side of the fire, and began to cry. The girl went and took him
up; and then Robert saw what she was like. Light-brown hair clustered
about a delicately-coloured face and hazel eyes. Later in the harvest
her cheeks would be ruddy--now they were peach-coloured. A white neck
rose above a pink print jacket, called a wrapper; and the rest of her
visible dress was a blue petticoat. She ended in pretty, brown bare
feet. Robert liked her, and began to talk. If his imagination had not
been already filled, he would have fallen in love with her, I dare
say, at once; for, except Miss St. John, he had never seen anything he
thought so beautiful. The baby cried now and then.

'What ails the bairnie?' he asked.

'Ow, it's jist cuttin'