ger, Mordaunt Mertoun. When his father's state of mind permitted, or indeed required his absence, he wandered from house to house a welcome guest wherever he came, and lent his willing voice to the song, and his foot to the revel. A boat, or, if the weather, as was often the case, permitted not that convenience, one of the numerous ponies, which, straying in hordes about the extensive moors, may be said to be at any man's commandment, conveyed him from the mansion of one hospitable Zetlander to that of another. None excelled him in performing the warlike sworddance, a species of amusement which had been derived from the habits of the ancient Norsemen. He could play upon the gue, and upon the common violin, the melancholy and pathetic tunes peculiar to the country; and with great spirit and execution could relieve their monotony with the livelier airs of the North of Scotland. When a party set forth as maskers, or, as they are called in Scotland, guizards, to visit some neighbouring laird, or rich udaller, it augured well of the expedition if Mordaunt Mertoun could be

prevailed upon to undertake the office of skudler, or leader of the band. Upon these occasions, full of fun and frolic, he led his retinue from house to house, bringing mirth where he went, and leaving regret when he departed. Mordaunt became thus generally known, and beloved as generally, through most of the houses composing the patriarchal community of the Main Isle; but his visits were most frequently and most willingly paid at the mansion of his father's landlord and protector, Magnus Troil.

It was not entirely the hearty and sincere welcome of the worthy old Magnate, nor the sense that he was in effect his father's patron, which occasioned these frequent visits. The hand of welcome was indeed received as eagerly as it was sincerely given, while the ancient udaller, raising himself in his huge chair, whereof the inside was lined with well-dressed seal-skins, and the outside composed of massive oak, carved by the rude. graving-tool of some Hamburgh carpenter, shouted forth his welcome in a tone which might have, in ancient times, hailed the return of Ioul, the

highest festival of the Goths. There was metal yet more attractive, and younger hearts, whose welcome, if less loud, was as sincere as that of the jolly udaller. But it is matter which ought not to be discussed at the conclusion of a chapter.

CHAPTER III,

"O, Bessy Bell and Mary Gray,
They were twa bonnie lasses;

They bigged a house on yon burn-brae,
And theekit it ower wi' rashes.
Fair Bessie Bell I loo'ed yestreen,
And thought I ne'er could alter,
But Mary Gray's twa pawky een

Have garr'd my courage faulter."
Scots Song.

WE have already mentioned Minna and Brenda, the daughters of Magnus Troil. The mother had been dead for many years, and they were now two beautiful girls, the eldest only eighteen, which might be a year or two younger than Mordaunt Mertoun, the second about seventeen.They were the joy of their father's heart, and the light of his old eyes; and although indulged to a degree which might have endangered his comfort and their own, they repaid his affection with a love, into which even blind indulgence had not introduced slight regard, or feminine caprice.

The difference of their tempers and of their complexions was singularly striking, although combined, as is usual, with a certain degree of family resemblance.

The mother of these maidens had been a Scottish lady from the Highlands of Sutherland, the orphan of a noble chief, who, driven from his own country during the feuds of the seventeenth century, had found shelter in those peaceful islands, which, amidst poverty and seclusion, were thus far happy, that they remained unvexed by discord, and unstained by civil broil. The father (his name was Saint Clair,) pined for his native glen, his feudal tower, his clansmen, and his fallen authority, and died not long after his arrival in Zetland. The beauty of his orphan daughter, despite her Scottish lineage, melted the stout heart of Magnus Troil. He sued and was listened to, and she became his bride; but dying in the fifth year of their union, left him to mourn his brief period of domestic happiness.

From her mother, Minna inherited the stately form and dark eyes, the raven locks and finelypencilled brows, which shewed she was, on one