as kindly in its gaiety, and each had an interest in the
other. I should have liked to have known the old town when it was thus
given up for ten days, half to military exercises, half to fraternity
and feasting. I should have been sorry when the feasting was
intemperate, but I would no more have condemned the general feasting
because of that circumstance, than I would condemn the gift of speech
because some of us are so left to ourselves as to tell lies or say bad
words.

II.--A MATCH-MAKER'S SCHEME.

It was a well-known and accredited fact that in consequence of these
festivities of the Yeomen more matches were made up in this brief
interval than during any other period of the year. Match-making
individuals seriously counted on the yeomanry weeks; and probably
far-seeing young ladies had fitting matches in their eye, as well as the
fireworks and the introductory gaiety, when they came in troops to
Priorton to entertain the lucky Yeomen.

"My dear," said Mrs. Spottiswoode, the wife of the chief magistrate, who
was likewise banker of Priorton, to her spouse, "your cousin, Bourhope,
has asked his billet with us: I must have my sister Corrie in to meet
him."

Mrs. Spottiswoode was a showy, smart, good-humoured woman, but not
over-scrupulous. She was very ready at adapting herself to
circumstances, even when the circumstances were against her. For that
reason she was considered very clever as well as very affable, among the
matrons of Priorton. Mr. Spottiswoode was "slow and sure:" it was
because of the happy alliance of these qualities in him that the people
of Priorton had elected him chief magistrate.

"My dear," deliberately observed long, lanky Mr. Spottiswoode, "would it
not be rather barefaced to have Bourhope and Corrie here together?"

"Oh, I'll take care of that," answered the lady, with a laugh and a toss
of her ribbons; "I shall have some other girl of my acquaintance to bear
Corrie company;--some worthy, out-of-the-way girl, to whom the visit
will be like entering another world," continued Mrs. Spottiswoode, with
a twinkle of her black eyes. "What do you think of Corrie and my cousin
Chrissy Hunter, of Blackfaulds? The Hunters have had such a deal of
distress, and so much fighting with embarrassment--though I believe they
are getting clearer now--that the poor lassie has had no amusement but
her books, and has seen absolutely nothing."

Mr. Spottiswoode had no inclination to contradict his wife for
c