But Katie's courage fell when she re-entered the family room, and heard again the reproaches of her mother. Humbly she stole away to the corner where stood the little wheel, to draw in a stool beside it, and begin to work. "Let that be," said Mrs Stewart peremptorily; "ye shall spin nae mair yarn to me; ye're owre grand a lady to spin to me; and stand out o' my light, Katie Stewart."

Poor little Katie! this compulsory idleness was a refinement of cruelty. With an irrepressible burst of sobbing, she threw herself down on a chair which Merran had newly restored to its place by the window, and, leaning her arms on the table beside her, buried her face in her hands. There is something very touching at all times in this attitude. The sympathy one might refuse to the ostentation of grief, one always bestows abundantly

upon the hidden face; and as the dull green light through these thick window-panes fell on the pretty figure, the clasped arms, and bright disordered hair, and as the sobs which would not be restrained broke audibly through the apartment, the mother's heart was moved at last. "Katie !"

But Katie does not hear. In her heart she is calling upon Isabell-upon Lady Anne--upon Willie-and bitterly believing that her mother has cast her off, and that there remains for her no longer a home.

"Katie, ye cuttie! What guid will ye do, greeting here, like to break your ain heart, and a' body else's? Sit up this moment, and draw to your wheel. Do ye think ony mortal wi' feelings like ither folk could forbear anger, to see a lassie like you throw hersel away?"

"But is it true, Katie ?" asked Lady Anne.

In the west room at Kellie, Katie has resumed her embroidery-has resumed her saucy freedom, her pouts, her wilfulness; and would convey by no means a flattering idea to Willie Morison of the impression his attractions have made upon her, could he see how merry she is, many an hour when he dreams of her upon the sea.

My mother never tells lees, Lady Anne," said Katie, glancing archly up to her friend's face.

"But Katie, I'm in earnest; you don't mean surely, you don't mean to take this sailor when he comes in again! Katie, you!-but it's just a joke, I suppose. You all think there's something wrong if you have not a sweetheart."

"No me," said Katie, with some indignation, tossing back her curls. "I dinna care for a' the sweethearts in Fife."

"How many have you had," said Lady Anne, shaking her head and smiling, "since you were sixteen?"

"If ye mean folk that wanted to speak to us, or whiles to dance with us, or to convoy us hame, Lady Anne," said Katie, with a slight blush, availing herself of the plural, as some

66

Maybe," said Katie, with a pout, stooping down over her frame.

"But maybe will not do. I want to know; have you made up your mind? Will you, Katie?"

"He'll maybe no ask me when he comes back," said the evasive Katie, glancing up with an arch demure smile.

Lady Anne shook her head. Till she caught this smile, she had looked almost angry; but now she also smiled, and looked down from her high chair, with renewed kindness, upon her little protegée.

"Katie, you must let me speak to

you. I will not say a word against him for himself; but he's just, you know, a common person. Katie, little Katie, many a one thinks of you, that you think little about. There's Betty, and Janet, and me; and we're all as anxious about you as if you were a sister of our own;-but to be a sailor's wife; to be just like one of the wives in Anster; to marry a common manoh Katie, could you do it?"

"He's no a common man," said Katie, raising her face, which was now deeply flushed; "he has as pleasant a smile, and speaks as soft and as gentle, and kens courtesie-it's no bowing I mean-it's a' thing-as weel as-"

"As whom?"

Sir Alexander! Again the name is almost on her lip, but Katie recollects herself in time.

"As weel as ony grand gentleman! And if he was a lord he would be nae better than he is, being plain Willie Morison !"

Nae better! You think so just now, little Katie, in your flush of affectionate pride; you did not quite think so when you first awoke to the perception that you were no longer free, no longer mistress of yourself; nor even now, sometimes, when one of your old splendid dreams shoots across your imagination, and you remember that your hero is the mate of the Levant schooner, and not a bold Baron nor a belted Earl.

"Lady Anne told me this morning when I was helping to dress her," said Bauby Rodger, stealing into the west room when Lady Anne was absent;—" but, Miss Katie, it's no true?"

Katie beat impatiently with her fingers upon the table, and made no

answer.

"Do you mean to tell me it's true?"

"What for should it no be true, Bauby?" exclaimed the little beauty. "Eh, Miss Katie, the like of you! but you'll repent and change your mind after a'. I'll no deny he's a bonny lad; but it wasna him, I reckon, Miss Katie, that sent ye the white roses yon time?"

Katie's cheeks flushed indignantly.

"It's no my blame folk sending hings. I took the flowers just because they were bonnie, and no for onybody's sake. I had nae way to ken wha sent them-and ye've nae right to cast it up to me, Bauby Rodger."

"Me cast it up to ye, my bonnie bairn! If I turn on ye, that have had ye among my hands maist a' your days, mair than your very mother, ye might weel mistrust a' the world; but tell me ance for a', is't true?"

Bauby had a great quantity of hair, very red hair, which her little plain cap, tied-a piece of extravagance which the Lady Erskine did not fail to notice-with two inches of narrow blue ribbon, was quite insufficient to keep in duresse.

One thick lock at this moment lay prone on Bauby's shoulder, as she leaned her great elbows on the table, and bending_forward looked earnestly into Katie Stewart's face.

Katie made no reply. She only cast down her eyes, and curiously examined the corner of her apron; but, at last, suddenly springing up, she seized Bauby's stray tress, pulled it lustily, and ran off laughing to her embroidery frame.

"Weel, weel," said Bauby Rodger, untying her scrap of blue ribbon to enable her slowly to replace the fugitive lock-" weel, weel, whaever gets ye will get a handful. Be he lord or be he loon, he'll no hae his sorrow to seek!"

The long winter glided away-there was nothing in it to mark or diversify its progress. Lady Anne Erskine saw a little more company-was sometimes with her sister Lady Janet, and for one New Year week in Edinburgh with Lady Betty; but nothing else chequered the quiet current of

Katie Stewart's life. Janet was married-for Alick Morison's ship sailed to "the aest country "-that is, the Baltic-and took a long rest at home all the winter. And in the Milton Mrs Stewart was sedulously preparing her objections all melting into an occasional grumble under the kindly

logic of Isabell-for another wedding. The inexhaustible oak press, out of whose scarcely diminished stores had come the "providing" of Isabell and Janet, was now resplendent with snowy linen and mighty blankets for Katie's; and in the pleasant mouth of April, Willie Morison was expected home.

These April days had come-soft, genial, hopeful days-and Katie sat in the kitchen of the Milton, working at some articles of her own trousseau, when a sailor's wife from Anstruther knocked at the open door,-a preliminary knock, not to ask admittance, but to intimate that she was about to enter. "I've brought ye a letter, Miss Katie," said Nancy Tod. "The ship's in, this morning afore daylight, and the captain sent aff my man in a boat to carry the news to his wife at the Elie; so the mate gi'ed Jamie this letter for you."

Katie had already seized the letter, and was away with it to the further window, where she could read it undisturbed. It was the first letter she had ever received, except from Lady Anne-the first token from Willie Morison since he waved his cap to her from the yards of the schooner, as it glided past the Billy Ness.

"Jamie came hame in the dead o' the nicht," said the sailor's wife, "and he's gi'en me sic a fright wi' what he heard at the Elie, that I am no like mysel since syne; for ye ken there's a king's boat, a wee evil spirit o' a cutter, lying in the Firth, and its come on nae ither errand but to press our men. Ane disna ken what nicht they may come ashore and hunt the town; and there's a guid wheen men the noo about Aest and Wast Anster, no to speak o' Sillerdyke and Pittenweem. I'm sure if there ever was a bitter ill and misfortune on this earth, it's that weary pressgang."

"Nae doubt, Nancy," said Mrs Stewart, with the comfortable sympathy of one to whom a kindred calamity was not possible; "but ye see Alick Morison, Janet's man, is a mate like his brother-and it's a guid big brig he's in, too-so we're no in ony danger oursels;-though, to be sure, that's just a' the mair reason why we should feel for you."

"Ane never kens when ane is

safe," said Nancy, shaking her head; "the very mates, ay, and captains too, nae less, are pressed just as soon as a common man afore the mast when they're out o' employ or ashore, my Jamie says; and muckle care seafaring men have to take now-a-days, skulking into their ain houses like thieves in the nicht. It's an awfu' hard case, Mrs Stewart. I'm sure if the king or the parliament men could just see the housefu' o' bairns my man has to work for, and kent how muckle toil it takes to feed them and cleed them, no to speak o' schulin', it wadna be in their hearts to take a decent head of a house away frae his family in sic a manner. Mony a wae thought it gi'es me-mony a time I wauken out o' my sleep wi' wat cheeks, dreaming Jamie's pressed, and the bairns a' greetin' about me, and their faither away to meet men as faes that never did harm to us, and wi' far waur than the natural dangers o' the sea to suffer frae. It's nae easy or licht weird being a sailor's wife in thir times."

Katie, her letter already devoured, had stolen back to her seat with glowing cheeks and bright eyes; and Katie, in that delight of welcome which made the partings look like trifles, was not disposed to grant this proposition.

"Is it ony waur than being a landsman's, Nancy?" she asked, glancing up from her work.

66

Eh, Miss Katie, it's little the like o' you ken-it's little young lassies ken, or new-married wives either, that are a' richt if their man's richt. I have as muckle regard for Jamie as woman need to have, and he's weel wurdy o't; but I've left ane in the cradle at hame, and three at their faither's fit, that canna do a hand's turn for themsels, puir innocents, nor will this mony a year-let-abee Lizzie, that can do grand about a house already, and will sune be fit for service, it's my hope; and Tam, that's a muckle laddie, and should be bund to some trade. What would come o' them a', if the faither was ta'en frae their head like Archie Davidson, no to be heard o' for may be ten or twenty years? Ye dinna ken-ye ken naething about it, you young things; it's different wi' the like o' me."

yet-she's neither stopped a ship nor sent a boat ashore. If she begins to show her teeth, we'll hear her snarl in time, and I'll away in to Cupar, or west to Dunfermline; nae fear of me -we'll keep a look-out on the Firth, and nae harm will come near us."

"If there was nae ither safeguard but your look-out on the Firth, waes me!" said his mother; "but ye're the son of a righteous man, Willie Morison, and ane of the props of a widow. The Lord preserve yefor I see ye'll ha'e muckle need."

:

The next day was the Sabbath, and Willie Morison, with his old mother leaning on his arm, reverently deposited his silver half-crown in the plate at the door of West Anster Church-an offering of thankfulness, for the parish poor. There had been various returns during the previous week a brig from the Levant, and another from Riga-where, with its cargo of hemp, it had been frozen in all the winter-had brought home each their proportion of welcome family fathers, and young sailor men, like Willie Morison himself, to glad the eyes of friends and kindred. One of these was the son of that venerable elder in the lateran, who rose to read the little notes which the thanksgivers had handed to him at the door; and Katie Stewart's eyes filled as the old man's slow voice, somewhat moved by reading his son's name just before, intimated to the waiting congregation before him, and to the minister in the pulpit behind, also waiting to include all these in his concluding prayer, that William Morison gave thanks for his safe return.

And then there came friendly greetings as the congregation streamed out through the churchyard, and the soft hopeful sunshine of spring threw down a bright flickering network of light and shade through the soft foliage on the causewayed street;-peaceful people going to secure and quiet homes families joyfully encircling the fathers or brothers for whose return they had just rendered thanks out of full hearts, and peace upon all and over all, as broad as the skies, and as calm.

But as the stream of people pours again in the afternoon from the two neighbour churches, what is this gradual excitement which manifests itself among them? Hark! there is the boom of a gun plunging into all the

echoes; and crowds of mothers and sisters cling about these young sailors, and almost struggle with them, to hurry them home. Who is that hastening to the pier, with his staff clenched in his hand, and his white "haffit locks" streaming behind him? It is the reverend elder who to-day returned thanks for his restored son. The sight of him-the sound of that second gun pealing from the Firth, puts the climax on the excitement of the people, and now, in a continuous stream from the peaceful churchyard gates, they flow towards the pier and the sea.

Eagerly running along by the edge of the rocks, at a pace which, on another Sabbath, she would have thought a desecration of the day, clinging to Willie Morison's arm, and with an anxious heart, feeling her presence a kind of protection to him, Katie Stewart hastens to the Billy Ness. The grey pier of Anster is lined with anxious faces, and here and there a levelled telescope under the care of some old shipmaster attracts round it a still deeper, still more eager, knot of spectators. The tide is out, and venturous lads are stealing along the sharp low ranges of rock, slipping now and then with incautious steps into the little clear pools of sea-water which surround them; for their eyes are not on their own uncertain footing, but fixed, like the rest, on that visible danger up the Firth, in which all feel themselves concerned.

Already there are spectators, and another telescope on the Billy Ness, and the whole range of "the braes" between Anstruther and Pittenweem is dotted with anxious lookers-on; and the far away pier of Pittenweem, too, is dark with its little crowd.

What is the cause? Not far from the shore, just where that headland,