, the latch rattled, as if some frail and impotent hand were in vain
attempting to lift it, and ever and anon they expected the entrance of
their terrible patient, animated by supernatural strength, and in the
company, perhaps, of some being more dreadful than herself. Morning came
at length. They sought brake, rock, and thicket in vain. Two hours
after daylight, the minister himself appeared, and, on the report of
the watchers, caused the country to be alarmed, and a general and exact
search to be made through the whole neighbourhood of the cottage and
the oak-tree. But it was all in vain. Elspat MacTavish was never found,
whether dead or alive; nor could there ever be traced the slightest
circumstance to indicate her fate.

The neighbourhood was divided concerning the cause of her disappearance.
The credulous thought that the evil spirit, under whose influence she
seemed to have acted, had carried her away in the body; and there are
many who are still unwilling, at untimely hours, to pass the oak-tree,
beneath which, as they allege, she may still be seen seated according to
her wont. Others less superstitious supposed, that had it been possible
to search the gulf of the Corri Dhu, the profound deeps of the lake, or
the whelming eddies of the river, the remains of Elspat MacTavish might
have been discovered--as nothing was more natural, considering her state
of body and mind, than that she should have fallen in by accident, or
precipitated herself intentionally, into one or other of those places
of sure destruction. The clergyman entertained an opinion of his own.
He thought that, impatient of the watch which was placed over her, this
unhappy woman's instinct had taught her, as it directs various domestic
animals, to withdraw herself from the sight of her own race, that
the death-struggle might take place in some secret den, where, in all
probability, her mortal relics would never meet the eyes of mortals.
This species of instinctive feeling seemed to him of a tenor with the
whole course of her unhappy life, and most likely to influence her when
it drew to a conclusion.

End of THE HIGHLAND WIDOW.

*****

MR. CROFTANGRY INTRODUCES ANOTHER TALE.

Together both on the high lawns appeared.
Under the opening eyelids of the morn
They drove afield. ELEGY ON LYCIDAS.

I have sometimes wondered why all the favourite occupations and pastimes
of mankind go to the disturbance of that happy state of tranq