short cuts--was through the
kitchen, and as he hastily brushed along the wall toward the door he
was brought up suddenly by a loud peal of the bell, and he looked at
one of the servants, who was working at the table, as much as to say,
"Do you hear that?"

She answered his look: "Yes, I ha'en, but there's naebody at the door.
It was yu that rang the bell: ye cam against that bag of worsted
clues for durning that I hung on the bell-wine yesterday. When onybody
happens to touch it the weight o' 't gars the bell ring; I would hae
to ta'en off."

With this simple and inglorious explanation John rushed to the
dining-room where he found Mrs. Forrester and the chatelaine in deep
Conspiracy again; and to this hour the ghost of Cockhoolet is a matter
(if you can use that word in connection with a ghost at all) of faith
and not of sight.

When Mrs. and Mrs Ormiston returned they found that their eldest
daughter was engaged to be married, which surprised them as little as
it did the old woman but moved them a good deal more.

THE LEADEN ARROW.

A wondrous half-century was that which forms an isthmus rather than a
bridge between the Middle Ages and the times termed Modern. Exit
the Last of the Barons--enter the printing-press. Exit Boabdil
el Chico--enter Columbus and Da Gama. The plot thickened as the
_cinquecenti_ hove in view. The last years were the most pregnant.
While the last sigh of the Moor was dying into the murmurs of the
Xenil, that solitary shout that will ring while earth lasts went up
from the bows of the Pinta. Together came America and the sea-way to
India and--the rifle. For in 1498, when Buonarotti was at his prime,
Raphael, fifteen years old, had just taken his seat at the paternal
easel, and the scenes of the _Lusiad_ were in progress, "barrels were
first grooved at Venice."

Who grooved them we are not told. The name of that artist has not
survived, though we still remember his contemporary townsman, Titian.
Strictly, he is not entitled to the immortality of an originator. That
belongs to the unknown savage who, in the miocene era probably, first
gave a twist to the feather of his arrow, thereby communicating to it
a revolving motion at right angles to the line of flight, and making
it an "arm of precision." But pre-historic artillery we may dismiss
or leave to Milton. The blind bard omits to inform us whether the
guns used in the great pounding-match between Lucifer and Michael
were smooth-bo