ent with our story,
These iron coasts by rage of seas unjarred--
What fields of peace these bulwarks will secure!
What vales of plenty these calm floods supply!
Shall not our love this rough, sweet land make sure,
Her bounds preserve inviolate, though we die?
--C. G. D. ROBERTS.

The fathers of the Scottish settlement were gathered about the stove in
Store Thompson's shop. This emporium was a respectable rival of Pete
Nash's tavern across the way. Anyone, weary of the noise and wrangling
which characterised that lively establishment, might step across to
Store Thompson's haven and find rest and quiet, a never-failing
hospitality and a much better social atmosphere. To-night the company
represented the best the settlement could produce, several of the
MacDonalds and a few of the inhabitants of the Glen.

Big Malcolm was among them. It was his first visit to the Glen since
the day of his disgrace, and he had not yet quite recovered his old
genial spirits.

One small lamp burned dimly on the counter and the forms of boxes and
barrels loomed up fantastically in shadowy corners. In the circle
about the stove the men's faces shone out spectrally from the cloud of
smoke produced by some half-dozen pipes.

As usual, Store Thompson was taking the lead in the conversation. He
stood leaning over the counter in the little ring of light, his
spectacles pushed up on his benign-looking forehead, his finger-tips
brought carefully together. In company with the schoolmaster, Store
Thompson had begun his winter's course of reading and was more than
usually oratorical.

"Aye," he was saying, "a dictionary 's a graund institution; aye, jist
a graund institution, like. When me an' the master now meets a word we
dinna ken, we jist run him doon in the dictionary, an' there he is, ye
see!"

"Oh, books will be fine things," said Big Malcolm, "but that Hamish of
ours will jist be no use when he will be getting his nose into one,
whatever. And he will be making the wee man jist as bad. Eh, it's him
that'll make the reader!" His eyes shone as they always did at any
mention of his grandson.

"Aye, Hamish is the man for the books!" cried Store Thompson
enthusiastically. "How is he gettin' on wi' Ivanhoe?"

"Och, he would be finishing it the night after he brought it home,
indeed; and now the little upstart will be trying his hand at it
whatever."

"Feenishin' it in twa nichts!" cried Store Thompso