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man was in his study, or amongst his humble flock, Mrs. Thornhill's assiduities were not slackened; she was the same attentive, kind, agreeable, and pious woman in her parlour and the "cotter's hallan ;" and the friendship that Ellen, the ruth gleaning Ellen, found in the bosom of her generous hostess, showed that it was a haven for her sorrows and her griefwrung heart; whilst the worthy Mr. Thornhill rendered all his conversations like the balm which the wounded spirit seldom knows how to ask for.

Nor were the attentions of the neighbouring people of her own rank less assiduous to the happiness of Ellen. Every Sunday at church, the ladies crowded around her, and soothed her much-wounded mind: the young ladies, her equals, except in affliction, contributed to lessen her sorrow by letting fall the tear of sympathy, with

that tone of mind which "weeps with

those that weep."

M. Villejuive would come to the same church; he would sit in his new pew, which Ellen once called papa's: and M. Villejuive was a devout man; he would put a shilling into the plate at the church-yard gate; and his sons gave each sixpence by his particular desire: he would go home, followed by the blessings of three poor beggars that were dined at his house. But though he set an example to the neighbouring farmers, in the article of agriculture; though he offered to teach them how beans and peas might be made to yield abundantly, and though he offered to assist them with his advice in raising heavy crops of oats; even though he invited them to come and see his young plants of clover, and healthy crops of rye; they would not profit by his instructions

or entreaties; " they all knew when grain handled cold and felt lean, as well as he; they were certain if the night-frosts injured their potatoes, his could not escape; and the mildew visited alike the crops of his lordship, the barons, the lairds, and the farmers. Hay they could make as well as a foreigner; and if the rain fell as heretofore, their grass-feed would be as abundant that year as it had been the one before; and cattle, sheep, lambs, wool, lint, horses, carts, plows, harrows, and stacking, they had not at thirty or forty years of age to be instructed in ;" and not a housewife in the island so much as entered the caim of St. Clyde, which the hapless Ellen had left.

But what peculiarly grated the mind of Villejuive was, that in process of time, on a Sunday, and at the annual fair, few, very few indeed, of

those who were the chit-chat friends of the old laird, offered to pay him court and as his power was limited by the manor of St. Clyde, none of the neighbouring farmers "cared a doit" for his displeasure or his smile; and the match between Ellen and Louis was now at an end.

The sons, who saw with concern the life their father was doomed to lead, and partaking more of their mother's milk than of their father's real nature, privately laid their heads together, and began to think of going to the West Indies to seek their fortune; and the more so, as the estate of St. Clyde did not belong to them by law: yet as their father was their guardian, and as they could not take ostensible measures for their departure till they consulted him, they disclosed their plan, and hoped, if Providence blessed them, never to need one penny of his money. This

he opposed, and they allowed the matter to rest for a few days.

About this time some busy-bodies whispered, that the caim of St. Clyde was haunted. A report of this kind did not need much evidence to establish its probability; and though Isabel Ross had never heard any thing strange in the house before this report, yet when questioned she was all terror; and the very next day had a tale of marvellous lore to hand to Jannett Glenderoy, and Jannett soon stitched it on the nimble wings of fame; and, in less than a week, it was very currently said, that Isabel dreamt that she was passing by the loch in which the old laird's body had been found, and that she saw Lerwick and another man hauling away the Laird St. Clyde to the upper loch by a halter about his neck; another man did not directly say who was meant, but the people were left to

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