tive land,
believed them with a child-like faith. He had heard of Lucky
Lightfoot, the spaewife; and to her he went for assistance. The old
woman, on hearing the sergeant's tale, requested him to leave with her
a gold ring he was wearing--a request he complied with. A few days
afterwards the woman returned the soldier his ring, now charmed, with
instructions to endeavour to get Miss Bloomer to wear it, though but
for a few minutes.

In her frequent rambles along the banks of a meandering stream, the
beauties of which Arthur Johnstone had celebrated in Latin verse, and
regarding which Thomas the Rhymer had uttered prophecies, Campbell,
unnoticed, followed Miss Bloomer, in the hope that fortune would
favour him some day. She botanized, fished, and shot, unheeding her
secret admirer. One day, to his delight, he observed her coming along
a footpath, and resolved to drop the ring, in the hope that she would
pick it up. Having left it in a conspicuous place, he retired into a
thicket to watch the result. The lady, seeing the ring, took it up,
examined it, and having no pocket or purse, put it on one of her
fingers, and, as fate would have it, on the fourth finger of the left
hand--the finger the Greeks discovered, from anatomy, had a little
highly sensitive nerve going straight from it to the heart. "Now,"
thought he, "she is mine. I shall follow her, and ask whether she has
found my ring;" but before he could muster courage to carry his
resolution into effect, Miss Bloomer disappeared.

With the view of discovering the owner, she continued to wear the
ring. Unexpectedly, Fred and Georgina Hopper, her cousins, while
driving past, stopped to take dinner, and to them she showed the ring.
Fred, who was an inveterate joker, made it the subject of several
jests, all of which Miss Bloomer bore with good humour; but when Miss
Hopper suggested that the ring might belong to some mean person, and
hinted that it was an act of impropriety to wear it, the blood rushed
to Miss Bloomer's cheeks; and she clenched her little fist, but for
what purpose did not transpire.

In the evening the cousins drove away, leaving Miss Bloomer in
anything but a pleasant mood. Evidently the charm had commenced to
take effect, or Miss Hopper's remarks had disturbed the young lady's
equanimity.

Still wearing the ring, Miss Bloomer retired to rest, or rather to
bed, for during the night she was restless, tossing from side to side
like one in delirium. O