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ticulars of the tragic scene. The grief of Mr. Stuart and his daughter was great; the language of Eliza was indicative of genuine affection for Ellen, and she could not resist the full tide of her grief; but showed, in hearing the final account of Ellen's sufferings, that she sympathized with, a feeling that had no fellow.

Eliza was very much gratified to hear how Levingstone had discharged the duties of a friend, nay of a son; but she was peculiarly pleased to hear the whole burst of his soul meet the comfortless condition of Ellen. Indeed she was to Eliza an object of even more interest than Colin had been; but she was her lost Colin's sister, and that was enough to make her partake o Ellen St. Clyde's grief. And though no forms nor modes denoted it alike to all, it swelled her tortured soul." Time would soften the asperity of Ellen's

loss, but it would not efface the distinctness of the impression of the tragic scene from this parentless girl's mind: the rights of nature are imperious; the crowning mercy was sealed in full assurance on Ellen St. Clyde's mind; this would be her strong consolation; the hand of friendship would try to dry up the big drop from her eyes."

It was in this way the tender-hearted Eliza reasoned with herself: she could even have written Ellen, but she could not venture so far; it was a false etiquette that prevented her. However, her father wrote to Levingstone, and omitted not to mention how much his daughter was afflicted by the awful catastrophe; and the name of Eliza formed to Ellen's fine mind, when Levingstone read the letter, the strongest picture of what she would have been in a cottage, were she the daughter of the toil-worn cotter, collecting to her

father's lonely cot, the spades, the mattocks, and the hoes, with which he brought his weekly moil to honest end.

"O happy love! where love like this is found!
O cheerful raptures! bliss beyond compare!
And sweetest cordial in this melancholy vale."

And Levingstone soothed the feelings. of Eliza, by writing Mr. Stuart some very pathetic letters on resignation to the mysterious ways of Heaven, and exhorted him to bend his whole attention to his forlorn daughter, for poor Eliza was as unhappy as misery could. make her.

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But though the lovely and estima-. ble Eliza had accidentally visited our thoughts, we shall detain her no longer; but shall now accompany the worthy minister, the dominie, and Levingstone, in endeavouring to bring to conviction and punishment, the wretch in human form, that bore a heart so cruel as to

imbrue his hands in the blood of one of the best of men.

The pedler, Lerwick, did not cease to frequent the island; and a fresh warrant was issued to apprehend him on the minister, the dominie, and Levingstone's testimony of Sandy Glass's tale; and he was apprehended; but he still denied all knowledge of the transaction, and appealed to his former proofs of innocence by an alibi.

But Sandy Glass insisted on being heard in Lerwick's presence, and on being allowed to come into his presence, too, in the dress of the laird with his rope and hour-glass. There was no method of satisfying Sandy that this was not necessary: he maintained that if Lerwick was innocent, his colour would not change, but if he was guilty, he would turn as pale as pale "as Sandy Glass's chalked face."

His

request was complied with; and sure enough, the poor pedler, at the sight of the spectre that had twice frightened him, became quite ghastly; and when Sandy questioned him, "why he ran awa frae him at my Lady Maisry's burn; and why, when he was sae ill, and sae near dying, and when he got better, he did na tell ony ane o' seeing the ghost of the laird at the burn side;" the pedler tried to evade Sandy, and endeavoured to quash his accusation by saying he had only seen him playing the ghost at the loch. The imputation of falsehood the poor semi-ideot could not brook, but appealed to all the island, if he had ever told a lie in his life; and Sandy could prove that he was met going into the wood the very day on which he first appeared to Lerwick.

This proof was demanded, and it was produced and established; but as

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