ivilly or
unkindly, but I saw that it cost him an effort to be as cordial as the
rest of his family. He was a good-natured, frank, kind-hearted man,
whom under other circumstances I should have hoped to have made my
friend. I cannot but think, too, that in time he would have won
Margaret's regard, and he was certainly a man to have made any woman
happy.

In two weeks or so I was Margaret's acknowledged suitor, or rather, I
may say, her affianced husband. I was so happy that I thought sorrow
could never again come near me. Now Margaret herself reminded me that I
was a Shetlander,--indeed, as I was born at sea, no other people would
claim me,--and that I ought to try and find out some of my family. I
talked the subject over with Mr Angus. He remembered many of them, but
when he came to consider, every one of my near relations were gone.
Some cousins of my father's were the nearest remaining, and then there
were several of Aunt Bretta's old friends, the companions of her youth
whom she wished me to see. John Angus volunteered to accompany me, and
he provided two strong, shaggy little ponies for our journey.

We started away one morning soon after daybreak over the wild tracks,
the only substitute for roads through the islands in those days, and
crossed into the chief part of the mainland by a causeway so narrow that
I could have thrown a biscuit across it. On one side of us was Rowe
Sound, and on the other Hagraseter Voe, a long, narrow voe running out
of Yell Sound. It would be difficult to describe the wild, and often
beautiful scenery through which we passed. Long, deep voes, full of
inlets and indentations, with high heathery hills on either side, was
the most characteristic feature, and quiet, little inland lochs, with
wildfowl resting on their bosoms, was another, and then high rocky
cliffs, the habitation of innumerable sea-birds, and hundreds of green
islands and rocks scattered about on every side on the surface of the
blue ocean.

John Angus did his best to point out to me the various points of
interest we passed. Among the most curious were the Pictie towers,
little round edifices built with rough stone, beautifully put together,
with passages inside winding up to the top without steps. They were
built by a race who inhabited those islands long before the time of
which history gives any account. Whence they came, or how they
departed, no one knows. Every hamlet throughout Shetland is called a
t