know it's hot in friendship."

"I know that, Meehaul Neil, without hearin' it from you. Spake, what
have you to say?"

"There was a time," observed the other, "when you and I were enemies
only because our cleaveens were enemies but now there is, an' you know
it, a blacker hatred between us."

"I would rather there was not, Meehaul; for my own part, I have no
ill-will against either you or yours, all you know that; so when you
talk of hatred, spake only for yourself."

"Don't be mane, man," said Neil; "don't make them that hates you despise
you into the bargain."

Lamh Laudher turned towards him fiercely, and his eye gleamed with
passion; but he immediately recollected himself, and simply said--

"What is your business with me this night, Meehaul Neil?"

"You'll know that soon enough--sooner, maybe, than you wish. I now ask
you to tell me, if you are an honest man, where you have been?"

"I am as honest, Meehaul, as any man that ever carried the name of Neil
upon him, an' yet I won't tell you that, till you show me what right you
have to ask me."

"I b'lieve you forget that I'm Ellen Neil's brother: now, Lamh Laudher,
as her brother, I choose to insist on your answering me."

"Is it by her wish?"

"Suppose I say it is."

"Ay! but I won't suppose that, till you lay your right hand on your
heart, and declare as an honest man, that--tut, man--this is nonsense.
Meehaul, go home--I would rather there was friendship between us."

"You were with Ellen, this night in the! Grassy Quarry."

"Are you sure of that?"

"I saw you both--I watched you both; you left her beyond the Pedlar's
Cairn, an' you're now on your way home."

"An' the more mane you, Meehaul, to become a spy upon a girl that
you know is as pure as the light from heaven. You ought to blush for
doubtin' sich a sister, or thinkin' it your duty to watch her as you
do."

"Lamh Laudher, you say that you'd rather there was no ill-will between
us."

"I say that, God knows, from my heart out."

"Then there's one way that it may be so. Give up Ellen; you'll find it
for your own interest to do so."

"Show me that, Meehaul."

"Give her up, I say, an' then I may tell you."

"Meehaul, good-night. Go home."

They had now entered the principal street of the town, and as they
proceeded in what appeared to be an earnest, perhaps a friendly
conversation, many of their respective acquaintances, who lounged in the
moonlight about their doors, were not a li