"I told you!" she said, "you wouldn't believe me."

All the same she was tender-hearted enough to
convey a platter of broken meats secretly up to
their "condemned cell," as I knew from finding the
empty plate under their washstand in the morning.
And as Maid Margaret was being carried off to be
bathed and comforted, a Voice, passing their door,
threatened additional pains and penalties to little
boys who frightened their sisters.

"It was all in a book," said Hugh John, defending
himself from under the bedclothes, "father read it
to us!"

"We did it for her good," suggested Sir Toady.

"If I hear another word out of you--" broke in the
Voice; and then added, "go to sleep this instant!"

The incident of the cave had long been forgotten
and forgiven, before I could continue the story of
Waverley in the cave of Donald Bean Lean. We sat
once more "in oor ain hoose at hame," or rather
outside it, near a certain pleasant chalet in a
wood, from which place you can see a brown and
turbulent river running downward to the sea.

THE THIRD TALE FROM "WAVERLEY"

I. THE CHIEF OF THE MAC-IVORS AND THE CHIEF'S SISTER

WHEN Edward awoke next morning, he could not for a moment remember where
he was. The cave was deserted. Only the grey ashes of the fire, a few
gnawed bones, and an empty keg remained to prove that he was still on
the scene of last night's feast. He went out into the sunlight. In a
little natural harbour the boat was lying snugly moored. Farther out, on
a rocky spit, was the mark of last night's beacon-fire. Here Waverley
had to turn back. Cliffs shut him in on every side, and Edward was at a
loss what to do, till he discovered, climbing perilously out in the rock
above the cave mouth, some slight steps or ledges. These he mounted with
difficulty, and, passing over the shoulder of the cliff, found himself
presently on the shores of a loch about four miles long, surrounded on
every side by wild heathery mountains.

In the distance he could see a man fishing and a companion watching him.
By the Lochaber axe which the latter carried Edward recognised the
fisher as Evan Dhu. On a stretch of sand under a birch tree, a girl was
laying out a breakfast of milk, eggs, barley bread, fresh butter, and
honeycomb. She was singing blithely, yet she must have had to travel far
that morning to collect such dainties in so desola