' THE DEID WIFE.

I went out, and the whole night seemed empty about me. The deep and wide
basin between the hollow palms of the hills was filled with an eery leme
of flame, flickering up from the ground.

I took my way with as great strides as I could compass, back to the
bower under the trees. The thunder rolled continuously about and about.
At times it seemed to recede far away, but always sounding from
different places, as though many peals were running races one with the
other. Then the lightning flickered, and keen little arrows sped hither
and thither till the whole sky twanged like a harp.

It seemed a hundred miles to the shieling on the hill. And when I came
near I was astonished and greatly affrighted to hear the sound of
voices, and at least one of them the voice of a man. A strange fear came
over me; hardly, I think, the fear of the King's men.

"I hae brocht wi' me my silver spune," said a voice that went to my
heart; "I made siccar o' my silver spoon. Gin I hae to gang to the
heather for the Covenant, at least I shall gang as a lady!"

It was my mother's voice, and I ran down to her, falling into her arms,
and bidding her to be quiet in the same breath.

Wat had just arrived with my mother and little Margaret of Glen Vernock,
who, winding herself about all our hearts, had become as her own child
to my mother in the days of her loneliness. They were weary and in need
of rest; but when I had told my news and the warning I had gotten from
Gash Gibbie in the fearsome precincts of the hut of Corp-licht Kate,
every one felt the need of at once forsaking the Bower of the Star and
betaking ourselves to Cove Macaterick--which, if not so pleasant or
commodious, was at least far more safe.

So we loaded us with Hugh Kerr's meal, and the little bits of things
that the lassies had gathered about them or brought with them. My mother
carried only an oaken staff in her hand, and in a satchel at her girdle
her beloved silver spoon (with "Mary Hope" on it in antique letters),
which her father had given her for her own when she learned to read, and
first took her place at the table above the salt.

"O what wad he hae said, that was Lord President of Session in his time,
gin he had seen his dochter Mary linkin' ower the heather wi' her coats
kilted in her auld age?" my mother cried out once when we hurried her.
For she had ever a great notion of her lineage--though indeed the Hopes
are nothing to compare with the G