me, with a large white cloth spread over his left arm.

"Harry Raymond!" she said, but by some unaccountable instinct
speaking, even in the extremity of her surprise, in a tone of voice
that scarcely reached beyond the person she addressed,--"In Heaven's
name, what do you here?--in this disguise? Aunt Alice will detect you,
and then my situation will be made doubly miserable."

"Then it _is_ miserable, Jane? Why do you submit to it? Ah, Jane,
you have forgotten, surely, the promises you gave me."

"Forgetfulness seems to have existed on more sides than one. I have
been four months in Lancashire, and am indebted, at last, to a chance
meeting in Scotland for being recalled to your recollection."

"Recollection!" echoed the young man, in the liveliness of his emotion
flinging the white cloth upon the floor. "Good heavens! what can have
put such a notion into your head? I have written letter upon letter,
both to you and your guardian--that is, after I found out where you
had gone to. My letters to you have not been answered; my letter to
him was answered by a refusal."

"Harry, Harry, he never consulted me--I never"----but here she checked
herself, as perhaps she considered that the vehemence of her denial
might be construed into something very like an anxiety to retract it;
and whether this was the construction put on it or not, all we have to
say is, that on Miss Alice Smith slipping quietly into the room, with
a volume of the _Scottish Chiefs_ in her hand, she almost screamed,
as she saw a stranger seated on the sofa beside her niece, and holding
her very earnestly by the hand.

"How! what's all this?" exclaimed Miss Alice. "Them Scotch is the
oddest people!"

"Young lady nearly fainted, ma'am, at some accounts I was giving her
of the Highlands, ma'am. I'm waiter here, ma'am; and it's part of my
business, ma'am, to give all sorts of information to the English
families as they pass through the city, ma'am."

"And what were you a-telling of to this young lady?"

"Only a few incidents that occasionally happen in such wild scenes as
Fash-na-Cairn or Ben-na-Groich. They say the new Ben-na-Groich is an
English nobleman, with a very handsome sister;--I was merely telling
this young lady here what would probably be the fate of the beautiful
English-woman."

"Gracious me!" exclaimed Miss Alice: "no wonder she fainted, poor
thing. What was it? for mercy's sake--what will they do to her?"

"Fash-na-Cairn and all his cl