ell, at any rate," said Sweetheart, dropping her
head with a sigh to go on with her seam, "I know
that Flora Mac-Ivor was truly patriotic. See how
she refused to listen to Waverley, all because she
wanted to give her life for the cause."

"Humph," said Hugh John, disrespectfully turning up
his nose, "that's all girls think about--loving,
an' marrying, an' playing on harps--"

"I don't play on harps," sighed Sweetheart, "but I
do wish I had a banjo!"

"I wish I had a targe and a broadsword, and the
Chief's horse, Brown Dermid, to ride on," said Hugh
John, putting on his "biggety" look.

"And a nice figure you would cut," sneered Sir
Toady Lion, provokingly; "Highlanders don't fight
on horseback! You ought to know that!"

Whereupon the first engagement of the campaign was
immediately fought out on the carpet. And it was
not till after the intervention of the Superior
Power had restored quiet that the next tale from
_Waverley_ could be proceeded with.

THE FOURTH TALE FROM "WAVERLEY"

HERE AND THERE AMONG THE HEATHER

NOT long after Callum Beg had been left behind, and indeed almost as
soon as the innkeeper and Edward were fairly on their way, the former
suddenly announced that his horse had fallen lame and that they must
turn aside to a neighbouring smithy to have the matter attended to.

"And as it is the Fast Day, and the smith a religious man, it may cost
your Honour as muckle as sixpence a shoe!" suggested the wily innkeeper,
watching Edward's face as he spoke.

For this announcement Edward cared nothing. He would gladly have paid a
shilling a nail to be allowed to push forward on his journey with all
speed. Accordingly to the smithy of Cairnvreckan they went. The village
was in an uproar. The smith, a fierce-looking man, was busy hammering
"dogs' heads" for musket-locks, while among the surrounding crowd the
names of great Highland chiefs--Clanronald, Glengarry, Lochiel, and that
of Vich Ian Vohr himself, were being bandied from mouth to mouth.

Edward soon found himself surrounded by an excited mob, in the midst of
which the smith's wife, a wild witchlike woman, was dancing, every now
and then casting her child up in the air as high as her arms would
reach, singing all the while, and trying to anger the crowd, and
especially to infuriate her husband, by the Jacobite songs which she
chanted.

At last the smith coul