after we were seated, 'anything of
your daughter Nelly?'

"'Not a word,' said I, eagerly. 'Have you?'

"'Would you know her,' continued he, 'if you were again to see her?'

"'Know her,' said I; 'to be sure I would--her image is ever before me. I
see her, at this moment, as plainly as if she were still alive. Oh!
what--horrible!--stand off!--stand off! Do these old eyes deceive me, or
art thou indeed my own darling, lost child?' said I; whilst Nelly--the
real flesh-and-blood Nelly--clasped me to her arms, and burst into a
flood of tears.

"'My father!--my father!' she exclaimed, whilst the young ones gathered
around us in stupid amazement; and my son-in-law, Sam Rogers, rubbed his
hands and flapped his arms in perfect delight. It was indeed my dear
Nelly, in the person of Helen Rogers, the still handsome mother of seven
children.

"But, Helen, I say--Helen, set down the bairn a wee bit, and tell this
honest gentleman the Dornoch story, ye ken."

"Hout," said Helen, "I hae nae time, father, to enter into a' the outs
and ins o' thae langsyne tales; besides, I see Sam waving me up to the
mill--I'm wanted, father, an' ye maun look after the bairn till I come
back again."

Being foiled in his wish to set his daughter's tongue agoing to the tune
of her own adventures, the old man placed the child on the greensward in
front of the cottage, and, after once more paying his respects to my
brandy-flask, proceeded as follows:--

"Weel, the lassie disna like to hear me tell the story; I ken she aye
blushes at bits o't; but now that she's awa, I may just as weel finish,
by letting ye know that the scamp wha had seen, and fallen in love, as
he called it, with her at Dornoch, had watched her down to the beach,
and having hired some accomplice in the person of one of the sailors,
had her misdirected in the first place, and lifted off her feet in the
second, and placed beside the well-known gentleman in a post-chaise,
which drove off immediately in an inland direction. In vain were all her
struggles and entreaties. The young blackguard immediately proceeded to
inform her that her struggles and her shouts were of no avail; that he
could not promise her marriage, as he was already engaged, to please his
mother; but he would give her love in abundance, and a cottage
residence, which he had provided for her on his father's property, at no
great distance. It was in vain for her to resist; but she had resolved
rather to die than to y