's was not a life wrecked on the rocks of adversity, any
more than Sam Winnington's was stranded on the sandbanks of prosperity.
The one did a little to mellow the other before the scenes closed, and
Will Locke was less obliged to Sam Winnington than Sam to Will in the
end. Will's nature and career were scarcely within the scope of Sam's
genial material philosophy; but the thought of them did grow to cross
Sam's mind during his long work-hours; and good painters' hours are
mostly stoutly, steadily, indefatigably long. He pondered them even when
he was jesting playfully with the affable aristocrat under his pencil;
he spoke of them often to Clary when he was sketching at her work-table
of an evening; and she, knitting beside him, would stop her work and
respond freely. Then Sam would rise, and, with his hands behind his
back, go and look at that lush, yet delicate picture of the Redwater
Bower which he had got routed out, framed, and hung in Clary's
drawing-room. He would contemplate it for many minutes at a study, and
he would repeat the study scores and scores of times with always the
same result--the conviction of the ease and security resulting from
spiritualizing matter, and the difficulty and hopelessness of
materializing spirit. And after these long looks into the past, Sam
would be more forbearing in pronouncing verdicts on his brethren,
worsted in the effort to express what was inherent in their minds; would
not decide quite so dogmatically, that all a man had to do was to be
sound and diligent, and keep himself far apart from high-flown rubbish,
like a common-sense, sober-minded Englishman. And Sam came to be less
feverishly anxious about his own monopoly of public esteem; less nettled
at art-criticism; perhaps less vivacious in his talents and well-doing,
but more manly and serene in his triumph, as Will Locke had been manly
and serene in his failure.

Will Locke's life and death, so devoid of pomp and renown, might be
beyond lamentation, after all.

ADAM HOME'S REPENTANCE.

I.--WILD, WITTY NELLY CARNEGIE.

"A bonny bride's sune buskit; eh, Nanny Swinton?"

"But ye're no bonny, Miss Nelly; na, na, ye cannot fill the shoon o' yer
leddy mother; ye're snod, and ye may shak yer tails at the Assembly, but
ye're far ahint Lady Carnegie."

"An' I've but to dance my set with young Berwickshire Home, I care not
though I bide at home after all."

But Nelly Carnegie would have little liked that resource,