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upon; and Mon. Villejuive alone, of this family, remained an object of mysterious curiosity and deep-rooted antipathy.

Levingstone was to return again in a fortnight to Kelvin. He had passed his terms at the Temple, and acquitted himself in a style that did honour to his own assiduities, and to the wisdom and learning of the barrister under whom he studied. He was looked upon by Ellen as a brother; and when her first transport of joy and sorrow, at the determination of her cousins (for both attempted to possess her soul, and strove for precedency), had subsided, she told him what they intended to do, and asked his opinion on the matter: he very frankly told her "he thought the young men were in the right of it;" and begged she would assure them, "that if he could serve them in any manner, they might at any and at all

times command his services, either as a professional man, or as the friend of the family of St. Clyde."

The minister wrote a polite note to the young Villejuives, and invited them to dinner the next day at the manse; but the father was not asked, because the minister would not scandalize his flock, by associating with a man of whom all said, "Avoid him, pass not by him; the Most High defended this island before it was visited by Villejuive."

The guests at the manse this day, were the children of sorrow. Perhaps • Louis' and Ellen's grief was only equalled by the humility with which he and his brother appeared in the presence of Levingstone, though, as far as regarded themselves, they had nothing to fear or be ashamed of; yet the stain suspicion cast on their name, caused each of them to hang down his head like a bull-rush; however the

good M. Thornhill dissipated their gloom by some lively conversation on the manners and hospitality of the West-India merchants, and embellished every thing that Ellen or the Villejuives said with the most facinating and instructive discourse, the effect of which was a reciprocity of all the noblest feelings of human nature, and a binding fast of kindred hearts, by bringing into action those imprescriptible sensations, which seldom or never fail in remote lands, and in trying sufferings, to render the retrospection of home and relations, who are ignorant of the wanderer's distress, one of the most delicious banquets at which the unadulterated ingenuous mind of man can be seated. Indeed, Levingstone envied Mr. Thornhill's facility in the tempest and storm of tragic suffering, as well as in the uncalled-for exertion of superior piety and wisdom in the

intricate windings of unseen and humble life.

Numbers of persons came to the manse, to see the Villejuives and Levingstone. On Sunday all the people flocked round them, and those who knew them only by eyesight put their hands to their hats and said an oracular benison; it was what the good, simple people liked much to follow with wondrous gaze, Levingstone with Ellen in his right arm, and a Villejuive on either flank, whilst the minister and his wife, and the baillie and comptroller, guarded them, walking out of the church-yard, and going down the haugh. There were many "blessings on him and on them dear lads," even at this sight; and the moral the people learned from it, was neither printed in book, nor taught from the pulpit; it was produced by one of those incidents in common life, which has frequently, on minds

willing to be guided in the paths of righteousness, the force and durability of a well-digested homily.

But from amidst this scene of real friendship stood Mon. Villejuive-no human being that left the church took any notice of him, except an old exciseman, and that too only en passant. The very children glided by Villejuive with fear and horror, and ran up to see his sons and Levingstone, with as much pleasure in their countenances as their open little souls, unacquainted with deceitful smiles, could possibly express by looks of gladness.

The parting of these good young men and their friends was very affecting; and when the Villejuives sailed for Greenock, where they were to embark, some persons came to take leave of them because they were the cousins of Ellen; but though these people had floods of compassion for the family of

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