were the retainers of Staneholme at their young laird's
unannounced return, safe and sound, from the wars; but greater and more
agreeable was their friendly surprise to find that his sick wife, who
came back with him unstrengthened in body, was healed and hearty in
spirit. Well might good old Lady Staneholme rejoice, and hush her bold
grandson, for the change was not evanescent or its effects uncertain. As
Staneholme drove out his ailing wife, or constructed a seat for her on
the fresh moor, or looked at her stitching his frilled shirts as
intently as the child's falling collars, and talked to her of his duties
and his sports, his wildness was controlled and dignified. And when he
sat, the head and protector of his deaf old mother, and his little
frolicsome, fearless child, and his Nelly Carnegie, whose spirit had
come again, but whose body remained but a sear relic of her blooming
youth, his fitful melancholy melted into the sober tenderness of a
penitent, believing man, who dares not complain, but who must praise God
and be thankful, so long as life's greatest boons are spared to him.

HECTOR GARRET OF OTTER.

I.--THE FIRE.

A calm, pure summer moonlight fell upon the Ayrshire mosses and deans,
but did not silver, as far as we are concerned, the Carrick Castle of
Bruce, nor Cameron's lair amidst the heather, nor landward Tintock, nor
even seagirt Ailsa Craig, but only the rolling waves of the Atlantic and
a grey turreted mansion-house built on a promontory running abruptly
into the water. The dim ivory light illuminated a gay company met in the
dwelling with little thought of stillness or solemnity, but with their
own sense of effect, grouped carelessly, yet not ungracefully, in an
old-fashioned, though not unsuitable drawing-room.

They needed relief, these brilliant supple figures; they demanded the
background of grey hangings, scant carpet, spindle-legged chairs, and
hard sombre prints. To these very cultivated, very artificial and
picturesque personages, a family sitting-room was but a stage, where
lively, capricious, yet calculating actors were engaged in playing
their parts.

The party were mostly French, from the mass of gallant, dauntless
emigrants, many of whom were thus entertained with grateful,
commiserating hospitality in households whose members had but lately
basked in the sparkling geniality of the southern atmosphere, now lurid
and surcharged with thunder.

There was a Marquise, worldly