bow when she said "good-day" to him, covered the parochial
potentate with shame for having received and treated her as a
commonplace captain's wife. Mr Hobkirk conveyed to his friends at their
evening sitting at the inn all that had passed between himself and his
distinguished visitor. He was smartly censured for being shortsighted
in not discerning that she belonged to the gentry, and he was charged
with the possibility of getting the leading citizens of the town into
bad repute.

"Why," said they, "she may write to the papers about it, and then there
will be a fine ado."

The tragedy of her husband's death and her visit created a sensation of
no small importance in the district. Local gossip made much of it, and
for a time the great Mr Hobkirk lost caste. The poor, bereaved lady was
the centre of sympathy. They thought of her standing by the grave-side,
holding her little son by the hand, and, wrapped by the veil of sorrow,
offering up a humble prayer to Almighty God, and then quietly passing
from the scene of sadness and death to make her way home.

IV

PIRACY IN THE ARCHIPELAGO

Who can fully estimate all the world owes to Providence and nature in
propagating the fervid Scottish race? They are found in every
continent, climbing from the three-legged stool in an office, or from
any other subordinate position. They toil upward with caution and
perseverance. They always aim at the top of the tree, and multitudes of
them succeed. But one of the Scot's extraordinary characteristics is
his deference to superiors. At an early age the average Scot is
characterized by this passion to get on by thrift, love of "siller," a
puritanic mode of thought, and an imperishable love of his country
which, however, does not prevent him from leaving it in order to enter
into mercantile or other pursuits in the farthest parts of the
earth--or the nearest, it really does not matter--so long as he gets a
decent start.

Archie Macvie's father, who was an elder of a Presbyterian Kirk,
managed one of the flax factories in an important town north of the
Forth. Archie was the youngest of the lads, and by far and away the
cleverest, but he had made up his mind to engage himself as an
apprentice aboard an English brig that was discharging flax for the
owners of the factory. This determination came as a great shock to the
Macvies, who had pictured their boy in the position one day of a
popular minister of their own denomination. Eve