r heart thrilled at the words!

Fired with these thoughts, she took out the old portfolio and began to
read the copy of the prophecies about her family. As she sat alone with
these old-time records, the candlelight flickering on their pages, she
felt almost as if she were in the presence of these ancestors of hers.

She found her grandmother's writing rather difficult to read, it was so
fine and delicate, and time had faded the ink to a pale gray.

As for the old prophecies, they were nothing but a set of doggerel
verses which any sensible person would probably have laughed at, but
they were made serious and impressive to Marjory by the fact that her
grandmother had thought it worth while to copy them, and had made notes
of her own as to the fulfilment of their predictions.

With great difficulty Marjory deciphered the following lines:--

"Come list to me, whoe'er ye be,
Who care for sayings true,
For, sooth to say, me trust ye may--
Prophesy these things I do:

"Since days of old the Hunters bold
Upon the muir held sway;
The Hunters' line shall ne'er decline
Till the muir doth pass away.

"By land and sea these brave men free
Their king shall nobly serve;
Their blood shall flow, their riches go
For the sovereign's cause they love.

"When bright days shine, the Stuart line
Shall hold these Hunters dear.
Should storms befall, a Hunter shall
Take his death-blow without fear.

"_N.B._--Fulfilled after the battle of Culloden in 1746, when
Colonel George Hunter was executed for his devotion to the cause of
the Young Pretender.

"In Church and State these Hunters great
A foremost place shall take;
With words as bold as theirs of old,
They shall speak for conscience' sake.

"_N.B._--Probably refers to speeches made by Alexander Hunter in
the House of Commons against the taxation of the Colonies, in 1765,
and to the Reverend John Hunter, a famous divine who lived in the
reign of George the Second.

"Should Hunter of this noble race
Pride of his house forget,
Ancestors grim shall punish him,
Till his fault he doth regret.

"_N.B._--Perhaps this refers to that James Hunter who, through his
reckless extravagance, sank deeply into debt, and was confined for
many months in the old Canongate Tolbooth in the city of Edinburgh,
during the reign of George the Third. His debts were paid by