ge business, to be sure, Mr. Archibald," said the lady;
"but I suppose I must make the best on't.--Are you sure the boat will not
sink? it leans terribly to one side, in my poor mind."

"Fear nothing," said Mr. Archibald, taking a most important pinch of
snuff; "this same ferry on Clyde knows us very well, or we know it, which
is all the same; no fear of any of our people meeting with any accident.
We should have crossed from the opposite shore, but for the disturbances
at Glasgow, which made it improper for his Grace's people to pass through
the city."

"Are you not afeard, Mrs. Deans," said the dairy-vestal, addressing
Jeanie, who sat, not in the most comfortable state of mind, by the side
of Archibald, who himself managed the helm.--"are you not afeard of these
wild men with their naked knees, and of this nut-shell of a thing, that
seems bobbing up and down like a skimming-dish in a milk-pail?"

"No--no--madam," answered Jeanie with some hesitation, "I am not feared;
for I hae seen Hielandmen before, though never was sae near them; and for
the danger of the deep waters, I trust there is a Providence by sea as
well as by land."

"Well," said Mrs. Dutton, "it is a beautiful thing to have learned to
write and read, for one can always say such fine words whatever should
befall them."

Archibald, rejoicing in the impression which his vigorous measures had
made upon the intractable dairymaid, now applied himself, as a sensible
and good-natured man, to secure by fair means the ascendency which he had
obtained by some wholesome violence; and he succeeded so well in
representing to her the idle nature of her fears, and the impossibility
of leaving her upon the beach enthroned in an empty carriage, that the
good understanding of the party was completely revived ere they landed at
Roseneath.

CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.

Did Fortune guide,
Or rather Destiny, our bark, to which
We could appoint no port, to this best place?
Fletcher.

The islands in the Firth of Clyde, which the daily passage of so many
smoke-pennoned steamboats now renders so easily accessible, were in our
fathers' times secluded spots, frequented by no travellers, and few
visitants of any kind. They are of exquisite, yet varied beauty. Arran, a
mountainous region, or Alpine island, abounds with the grandest and most
romantic scenery. Bute is of a softer and more woodland charact