They put Mrs. St. Clyde again into bed, and approached the room of the eldest daughter. All here was silent as the tomb: Norah's eyes were closed; her teeth rattled one against another, as if set in motion and continued in action by some secret piece of mechanism: colour she had none more than Jairus' daughter, when He who gave life to the dead, said "Talitha cumi.”

The doctor was there: medicine had been poured down her throat; she could not swallow it: the warm bath could not give warmth to her limbs ; her hands were cold; the nails of her fingers were tinged with the tint of mortality; on her forehead stood some drops of cold perspiration, which had the semblance of dew on the winter lily in January's morn.

The wives and daughters of the neighbouring farmers were there; the comptroller's wife and his daughter had

come from Rothsay; Mrs. Thornhill, Mrs. Gillies, and the doctor's wife, all were there. In fact, Mrs St Clyde was given up by the doctor; but his wife would nurse her, and wet her lips with a little wine.

Mrs. Thornhill never left the room of Miss Norah St. Clyde, and the comptroller's wife directed all her attention to the unhappy Miss Ellen St. Clyde.

"But what is to be done?" said Levingstone. "Why, sir," said the minister, we have made every enquiry." "Have you searched the woods on each side the loch, Mr. Thornhill ?" We have not; but we shall do it." It was now past seven o'clock of a dark winter evening: next morning the woods were to be searched; and, in addition to this, Villejuive insisted on dragging each of the lochs without delay: Levingstone insisted they should search the lochs afterwards: Villejuive now

thought, if their margin were traversed it might be all that would be necessary; as, if there were no traces to be found on the water's lip, of the laird's having thrown himself into the loch, it would be unnecessary to drag them all over.

Messengers are every where sent, the alarm bell was rung: all the people, the farmers and their cotters for miles around, were seen hastening to St. Clyde's, some without their coats, others without their bonnets, some on horseback; and the poor women who would not leave their infant babes at home, flew to the laird's with them under their arms.

The minister accompanied by Levingstone, and the dominie accompanied by Villejuive, took a wood each, attended by more than forty followers.

They entered the wood at one end, and passed through its almost im

penetrable bushes man by man, within a yard of each other. When they got to the farther end of these woods, they returned again on a fresh piece of their surface, and in this way,through swamps and through burns, over difficult and almost inaccessible crags and rocks, amidst knots of furze, and jungles of holly bushes; every part was traversed: there was fortunately not any suow on the ground; though some had fallen, there had been three days successive rain, and it was well nigh all washed away.

There were two lochs which nature had placed in one right line with each other; but by the sportive mode in which she scooped out their beds, and chose their position, one of them was on a plane many yards above the other; and there were boats on those, but the sailors from the town brought three boats more for each loch, and the whole of

the sinuous shore of each was crowded with people, wherever the absence of bushes allowed them to get to the water's edge. Nets and drag lines were used for three days, but without success; and all hopes of finding the body in these lochs were consequently abandoned. But there was another loch, the ends of which were flanked by two of the chief roads in the island, and some hopes were entertained of meeting with the corpse in it: boats soon floated on the bosom of this loch; but two days search proved here as unsuc cessful as on the others.