they say they are named after the
Virgin, but I think Adam must have named them in the Garden.--Bridget
tells me that the Irish believe the fairies sleep in these bells.--This
is the plant of whose root cats are so fond that they burrow about it
and nibble it, and as it does not hurt them, I have dug up a bit for our
puss--little Leslie looks after her already.--I have been writing down
the day when the swallows twittered at the window, to compare with their
arrival next summer. Peggy Barbour saw a double nest with one hole last
year; it must have been an old pair and a young maintaining a joint
roof-tree.--Yes, of course, these are jay's feathers."

Another resource which Leslie found within Hector Garret's perception
was that of music. She had been endowed with a flexible, melodious
voice, and as soon as she had use for them, she gathered by magic a
host of ditties, blithe or sad, stirring or soothing, from the
romantic fervour of 'Charlie, he's my darling,' to the pathos of
'Drummossie Moor,' or the homely, biting humour of 'Tibbie Fowler,' to
carol to the accompaniment of the ancient spinet, in order to cheer or
lull the child.

Hector Garret would move to his study-window, and open it softly, in the
gloaming hour when the purple sunset was on the sea, and the bats
abroad from the old chimneys, to listen to his wife in the room above
singing to her child. He did not hear her music otherwise: if he had
solicited it, she would have complied, with a little surprise, but he
did not seek the indulgence.

The alteration in Leslie which matured her unexpectedly from a girl to a
woman affected powerfully both the arbiters of her destiny. Bridget
Kennedy, from a tyrant, was fairly transformed into her warmest and most
faithful adherent. There was something high and great in the wild old
woman, that could thus at once confess her error, admit greatness in any
form in another, and succumb to it reverently. Truly, Bridget Kennedy
was like fire to the weak and foolish, a scourge and a grizzly phantom;
to the brave and capable, a minister fearless, fond, and untiring to her
last breath.

It was very strange to Hector Garret to be sensible of Bridget's lapse
from his side,--to hear the present mistress, the subdued diligent
woman, canonized to the level of the grand, glad lady of Otter to whom
Bridget had been so long fanatically loyal. He said to himself that the
child had helped to effect it, the precious descendant, the do