me and beat me with sticks, and thrust me out
of your houses."

"I do not think," said Sheila, looking down, "that you have much fear of
that, Mr. Ingram."

"Is the world going to alter because of me?"

"I would rather not have you try to do anything that is likely to get
you into unhappiness," she said.

"Oh, but that is absurd. You timid young folks can't act for yourselves.
You want agents and instruments that have got hardened by use. Fancy the
condition of our ancestors, you know, before they had the sense to
invent steel claws to tear their food in pieces--what could they do with
their fingers? I am going to be your knife and fork, Sheila, and you'll
see what I shall carve out for you. All you've got to do is to keep your
spirits up, and believe that nothing dreadful is going to take place
merely because some day you will be asked to marry. You let things take
their ordinary course. Keep your spirits up--don't neglect your music or
your dinner or your poor people down in Borvabost--and you'll see it
will all come right enough. In a year or two, or less than that, you
will marry contentedly and happily, and your papa will drink a good
glass of whisky at the wedding and make jokes about it, and everything
will be as right as the mail. That's my advice: see you attend to it."

"You are very kind to me," said the girl in a low voice.

"But if you begin to cry, Sheila, then I throw up my duties. Do you
hear? Now look: there goes Mr. Lavender down to the boat with a bundle
of rugs, and I suppose you mean me to imperil my precious life by
sailing about these rocky channels in the moonlight? Come along down to
the shore; and mind you please your papa by singing 'Love in thine eyes'
with Mr. Lavender. And if you would add to that 'The Minute Gun at Sea,'
why, you know, I may as well have my little rewards for intermeddling
now, as I shall have to suffer afterward."

"Not through me," said Sheila in rather an uncertain voice; and then
they went down to the Maighdean-mhara.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

AT ODDS.

The snow had lain upon the ground
From gray November into March,
And lingering April hardly saw
The tardy tassels of the larch,
When sudden, like sweet eyes apart,
Looked down the soft skies of the spring,
And, guided by alluring signs,
Came late birds on impatient wing.

And when I found a shy white flower--
The first love of the amorous sun,
T