all her neices, had she twenty instead of two, could think, wink, nod, or tattle, about the matter that concerns them not." "Alas! Brenda," answered Minna, with calmness, "this vivacity is more than is required for the defence of the character of a mere friend !-Beware-He who ruined Norna's peace for ever, was a stranger, admitted to her affections against the will of her family.' "He was a stranger," replied Brenda, with emphasis, "not only in birth, but in manners. She had not been bred up with him from her youth,—she had not known the gentleness, the frankness of his disposition, by an intimacy of many years. He was indeed a stranger, in character, temper, birth, manners, and morals,--some wandering adventurer, perhaps, whom chance or tempest had thrown upon the islands, and who knew how to mask a false heart with a frank brow. My good sister, take home your own warning. There are other strangers at BurghWestra, besides this poor Mordaunt Mertoun." Minna seemed for a moment overwhelmed with the rapidity with which her sister retorted her suspicion and her caution. But her natural loftiness of disposition en abled her to reply with assumed composure. "Were I to treat you, Brenda, with the want of confidence you show towards me, I might reply that Cleveland is no more to me than Mordaunt was; or than young Swartaster, or Lawrence Ericson, or any other favourite guest of my father's now is. But 1 scorn to deceive you, or to disguise my thoughts.-I love Clement Cleveland." "Do not say so, my dearest sister," said Brenda, abandoning at once the air of acrimony with which the conversation had been latterly conducted, and throwing her arms round her sister's neck, with looks, and with a tone, of the most earnest affection,-" do not say so, I implore you! I will renounce Mordaunt Mertoun, I will swear never to speak to him again; but do not repeat that you love this Cleveland !" "And why should I not repeat," said Minna, disengaging herself gently from her sister's grasp, "a sentimient in which I glory? The boldness, the strength and energy of his character, to which command is natural, and fear unknown, these very properties, which alarm you for my happiness, are the qualities which insure it. Remember, Brenda, that when your foot loved the calm smooth sea-beach of the summer sea, mine ever delighted in the summit of the precipice, when the waves are in fury." "And it is even that which I dread," said Brenda; “it is even that adventurous disposition which now is urging you to the brink of a precipice more dangerous than ever was washed by a spring-tide. This man,-do not fi own, I will say no slander of him,-but is he not, even in your own partial judgment, stern and overbearing? accustomed, as you say, to command; but for that very reason, commanding where he has no right to do so, and leading whom it would most become him to follow ? rushing on danger, rather for its own sake, than for any other object? And can you think of being yoked with a spirit so unsettled and stormy, whose life has hitherto been led in scenes of death and peril, and who, even while sitting by your side, cannot disguise his impatience again to engage in them? A lover, methinks, should love his mistress better than his own life; but yours, my dear Minna, loves her less than the pleasure of inflicting death on others." 66 I "And it is even for that I love him," said Minna. am a daughter of the old dames of Norway, who could send their lovers to battle with a smile, and slay them, with their own hands, if they returned with dishonour. My lover must scorn the mockeries by which our degraded race strive for distinction, or must practise them only in sport, and in earnest of nobler dangers. No whalestriking, bird-nesting favourite for me; my lover must be a Sea-king, or what else modern times may give that draws near to that lofty character." 66 Alas, my sister!" said Brenda, "it is now that I must in earnest begin to believe the force of spells and of charms. You remember the Spanish story which you took from me long since, because I said in your admiration of the chivalry of the olden times of Scandinavia you rivalled the extravagance of the hero.-Ah, Minna! your colour shows that your conscience checks you, and reminds you of the book I mean ;-is it more wise, think you, to'mistake a wind-mill for a giant, or the commander of a paltry corsair for a Kiempe, or a Vi-king?" Minna did indeed colour with anger at this insinuation, of which, perhaps, she felt in some degree the truth. "You have a right," she said, to insult me, because you are possessed of my secret." Brenda's soft heart could not resist this charge of unkindness; she adjured her sister to pardon her, and the natural gentleness of Minna's feelings could not resist her entreaties. be "We are unhappy," she said, as she dried her sister's tears, "that we cannot see with the same eyes-let us not make each other more so by mutual insult and unkindness. You have my secret-it will not, perhaps, long one, for my father shall have the confidence to which he is entitled, so soon as certain circumstances will permit me to offer it. Meantime, I repeat, you have my secret, and I more than suspect that I have yours in exchange, though you refuse to own it." "How, Minna !" said Brenda; "would you have me acknowledge for any one such feelings as you allude to, ere he has said the least word that could justify such a confession ?" "Surely not; but a hidden fire may be distinguished by heat as well as flame." "You understand these signs, Minna," said Brenda, hanging down her head, and in vain endeavouring to suppress the temptation to repartee which her sister's remark offered; but I can only say, that, if ever I love at all, it shall not be until I have been asked to do so once or twice at least, which has not yet chanced to me. But do not let us renew our quarrel, and rather let us think why Norna should have told us that horrible tale, and to what she expects it should lead." "It must have been as a caution,” replied Minna—“ a caution which our situation, and, I will not deny it, which mine in particular, might seem to her to call for ;-but I am alike strong in my own innocence, and in the honour of Cleveland." Brenda would fain have replied, that she did not confide so absolutely in the latter security as in the first; but she was prudent, and, forbearing to awaken the former painful discussion, only replied, "It is strange that Norna should have said nothing more of her lover. Surely he could not desert her in the extremity of misery to which he had reduced her ?" "There may be agonies of distress," said Minna, after a pause," in which the mind is so much jarred, that it ceases to be responsive even to the feelings which have most engrossed it ;-her sorrow for her lover may have been swallowed up in horror and despair." "Or he might have fled from the islands, in fear of our father's vengeance," replied Brenda. "If for fear, or faintness of heart," said Minna, look ing upwards," he was capable of flying from the ruin which he had occasioned, I trust he has long ere this sustained the punishment which Heaven reserves for the most base and dastardly of traitors and of cowards.-Come, sister, we are ere this expected at the breakfast board." And they went thither, arm in arm, with much more of confidence than had lately subsisted between them; the little quarrel which had taken place having served the purpose of a bourasque, or sudden squall, which dispels mists and vapours, and leaves fair weather behind it. On their way to the breakfast apartment, they agreed that it was unnecessary, and might be imprudent, to communicate to their father the circumstance of the nocturnal visit, or to let him observe that they now knew more than formerly of the melancholy history of Norna. NOTES TO THE PIRATE. 1. Page 16. Patch of ground for vegetables. The liberal custom of the country permits any person, who has occasion for such a convenience, to select out of the unenclosed moorland a small patch, which he surrounds with a drystone wall, and cultivates as a kail-yard, till he exhausts the soil with cropping, and then he deserts it, and encloses another. This liberty is so far from inferring an invasion of the right of proprietor and tenant, that the last degree of contempt is inferred of an avaricious man, when a Zetlander says he would not hold a plantie cruive of him. 2. Page 16. A lispund is about thirty pounds English, and the value is averaged by Dr. Edinonston at ten shillings sterling. 3. Page 21. Finner, small whale. 4. Page 21. The sagas of the Scalds are full of descriptions of these champions, and do not permit us to doubt that the Berserkars, so called from fighting without armour, used some physical means of working themselves into a frenzy, during which they possessed the strength and energy of madThe Indian warriors are well known to do the same by dint of opium ness. and bang. 5. Page 23. Fatal accidents, however, sometimes occur. When I visited the Fair Isle in 1814, a poor lad of fourteen had been killed by a fall from the rocks about a fortnight before our arrival. The accident happened almost within sight of his mother, who was casting peats at no great distance. The body fell into the sea, and was seen no more. But the islanders account this an honorable mode of death; and as the children begin the practice of climbing very early, fewer accidents occur than might be expected. 6. Page 24. Near the conclusion of this chapter it is noticed that the old Norwegian sagas were preserved and often repeated by the fishermen of Orkney and Zetland, while that language was not yet quite forgotten. Mr. Baikie of Tankerness, a most respectable inhabitant of Kirkwall, and an Orkney proprietor, assured me of the following curious fact. clergyman, who was not long deceased, remembered well when some remnants of the Norse were still spoken in the island called North Ronaldshaw. When Gray's Ode, entitled the "Fatal Sisters," was first publish ed, or at least first reached that remote island, the reverend gentleman had the well-judged curiosity to read it to some of the old persons of the isle, as a poem which regarded the history of their own country. They listened with great attention to the preliminary stanzas: "Now the storm begins to lour, But when they had heard a verse or two more, they interrupted the reader, telling him they knew the song well in the Norse language, and had often |