would not have retired without consulting her, and would not be sleeping so calmly there, she glided with a lighter heart to her

own room.

Here the first thing that met her view was an odd-looking packet, directed by Grizzy's old-fashioned hand. She opened it. It contained Tibby's letters from Donald o' the brae, returned as soon as read, a letter from Grizzy herself, and one from Babie, in which was enclosed the half-crown Ellen had lent her. Grizzy's letter ran thus.

"Mony thanks, my dearest Ellen Lindsay: I see I wranged your cousin in fancying onything she said at a' fictitious-tell her I wish her weel; for mysel, I trust a daughter o' the house of Douglas canna sae demean hersel as to mourn for a fause, double-faced deceiver; but indeed a' this has weel nigh upset me. My trust in a' things seems shaken now, and a' my habits o' thought and o' memory are sair disturbed. I beg you will mak time to write to me now and then. If I canna be happy mysel, to hear you are so will be a real

comfort, and if ye never meet me mair, which is ower likely, for I feel I am na lang for this world, be kind to puir Babie. She came bock to day unco late, and much disfigured, as the serving lassie tells me, for I was in bed, her feather broken, and her dress a' draggled wi' mud; but I have na asked her what befel her, for I have na spirit to scold the puir lassie noo-'deed, I think I deserve it mair than hersel, for it is mair sinfu' to hate life than to enjoy it.

"I set off to-morrow wi' her for my ain dear land. May be I may be mair mysel when I breathe that pure air, and look again on the hills and the heather; but na, na, they will but remind me!...forgive me, dear Ellen Lindsay, and accept my warm thanks for a' your mony favours. Ye have been unco kind, lassie, to a daughter o' a house that never forgets either kindness offered, or wrang done, even to a daughter o' the house o' Douglas.

"GRISELDA Douglas,

"o' Douglas Glen."

The other letter was written in a much

weaker hand.

"I return you your half-crown, dear Ellen, wi' mony thanks. I do na offer to repay you for the wax figure, because I consider it was a great imposition, and I did a' I could to prevent your being so taken in by a saucy callant o' a southron, wha kens nor honesty nor manners. Neither do I offer to repay you for the cab in whilk I rode easily enoo, and arrived hame quite safe, because I wudna offend ye, and as I was your guest in your ain carriage, ye could na do less, when it could na tak me hame, than send me bock in anither.

66

"I canna write you sae long a letter as I would, for a great spiteful bird in the cage, that looked for a' the warld as mild as a dove, only much larger, a' white, except a bonny plume o' yellow feathers on his head, deceived me into taking him on my finger, and then, like a fause sonthron as he is, bit me well nigh to the bone. Nor was that the only hoccident I met wi', for while I was looking at the monkeys (chattering ugly craters as they are), one o' them got hold o' my cop and plume,

and when the mon got it bock again, the crater had broken the feather and made it quite a disfigured cop.

66

Weel, I put it on again, and was for ganging hame, for I was na fit to be seen, when a mon advised me to tak a ride on the elephant, a huge crater like a hoose; as ill luck would have it, I, thinking it might be lang before I'd get such an offer again, consented, when I ken na how or why it was, the grate ugly heathen baste set off, and in a minute or twa I found he had trod down the fence, and joodge o' my dismay, he stalked into a pond, and knelt down wi' his great ugly vicious knees in the water. I did na ken what to do; however, I did my best, and got upon my feet upon the baste's braid bock-when, oh, conceive o' my terror! he turned up his great trunk, just like the boa-constrictor, and I felt the warm hot baste o' a thing a turning round my waist. Think o' my condition, alone in the pond, a standing like a rope-dancer on the beast's bock-a crowd round the pond, a' the wretches laughing and

shouting, and nane helping me at a', and I expecting every moment that the great heathen o' a beast would tak me in his wicked trunk and poke me down his hideous throat.

"Ye may believe that I cried, and shrieked, and tauld them a' they were na men, but waur than brute bastes, to see a lassie in such a straight, and na to help her. The brutes only laughed the mair. Weel, I canna tell how lang I was in this unco great peril, for in danger one canna measure time; when to my great joy I found the creature's trunk was in search na o' mysel but o' my reticule, which the cunning creature had seen me fill wi' buns, which I had intended for the bears.

"Weel, I was wild wi' joy at the moment to think it was the bag he wanted and na me. Sae he took it and swallowed it wi' a' its contents, and then he walked out o' the water, and I mair dead than alive was lifted off his bock, and getting awa' fra a' the laughing brutes, to whom I gave a gude lecture, and one I think they wunna forget, I ran bock to