n the state of her heart. But, though touched by her tears, he
understood them not, treated them but as the natural mawkishness of
girlish sentimentality; nor had her assurance that she could never love
any one but her cousin John, power to dissuade him from the prosecution
of his suit. He was void of all delicacy of feeling, was neither hurt
nor displeased with her confessed partiality for another, but satisfied
himself by quoting, misquoting, and utterly perverting Scripture, and
concluded by assuring her that it was her bounden duty to obey her
father _before_ marriage--her husband _after_. He had no doubt she would
be very happy as his wife, for "he was rich, and a steady Presbyterian!"
And with this declaration, threatening a return in six months to claim
her hand--which he had the audacity to kiss--he left her for his Glasgow
warehouses.

In this dire dilemma the poor lassie knew not what course to pursue. Her
aunt, although kind, indulgent, and pitying her, (for in youth she had
had experience of a blighted affection, and no woman-heart, that is not
naturally sour, passes through such trial without becoming
sweeter)--was bound in complete serfdom to her brother, and was quite
unable to suggest any means or likelihood of release; so Barbara wrote a
full account of her predicament to her lover. Not long afterward, so
cleverly disguised by dress as to deceive even herself, Percival was
again at Aberdeen--determined, should all other methods fail, to carry
off his kinswoman on the very eve of the bridal; and many a twilight
evening, when the minister sat over books or took his after-dinner nap,
did those two young creatures meet, unnoticed and unsuspected, on the
banks of the Dee. But those meetings must soon end, for six months have
passed, and Mr. Bruce--once more lodged in the house of Davy Bain--is
come to wed and take home his reluctant bride.

One evening--it was cloudy and threatened foul weather, though the
summer air was warm and surcharged with flower-scents--John Percival
betook himself as usual to the customary trysting-place. It was a thick
copse of hazel past which ran--heard but not seen--the river; which,
where the shrubbery ended, formed a dark, deep pool, so garnished by
overhanging nut-trees that it had acquired the name of the Nut-hole.
Beyond this pool lay the road to the manse; but as the trees here ceased
to offer concealment, the Nut-tree-hole became the limits to Percival's
attendance on his