him desert and gang over to another? For me, I would like to see my laddie faithful to his first thoughts. I'm no saying faithful to his Master, for a man may be that though he's no a minister," continued the Mistress; "but I canna bear to see broken threads; be one thing or be another, but dinna melt away and be nothing at a'," the indignant woman concluded abruptly, moving away to set things in order in the room before they all retired for the night. It was the faint, far-off, and impossible idea of her son settling down into one of the Fellowships of which Mrs. Campbell had been reading which moved her to this little outburst. Her authority probably was some disrespectful novel or magazine article, and that was all the idea she had formed in her ignorance of the nurseries of learning. Colin, however, was so far of her mind that he responded at once.

"I don't mean to give up my profession, mother; I only mean to be all the more fit for it," he said. "I should never hesitate if I had to choose between the two."

"Hear him and his fine talk," said the farmer, getting up in his turn with a laugh. It would be a long time before our minister, honest man, would speak of his profession. Leave him to himself, Jeanie. He kens what he's doing; that's to say, he has an awfu' ambition considering that he's only your son and mine," said big Colin of Ramore; and he went out to take a last look at his beasts with a thrill of secret pride which he would not for any reward have expressed in words. He was only a humble Westland farmer looking after his beasts, and she was but his true wife, a helpmeet no way above her natural occupations; but there was no telling what the boy might be, though he was only "your son and mine." As for Colin the younger, he went up to his room half an hour later, after the family had made their homely thanksgiving for his return, smiling in himself at the unaccountable contraction of that little chamber, which he had once shared with Archie without

finding it too small. Many changes and many thoughts had come and gone since he last lay down under its shelving roof. Miss Matty who had danced away like a will-o'-the-wisp, leaving no trace behind her; and Alice who had won no such devotion, yet whose soft shadow lay upon him still; and then there was the deathbed of Meredith, and his own almost deathbed at Wodensbourne, and all the thoughts that belonged to these. Such influences and imaginations mature a man unawares. While he sat recalling all that had passed since he left this nest of his childhood, the Mistress tapped softly at his door, and came in upon him with wistful eyes. She would have given

all she had in the world for the power of reading her son's heart at that moment, and, indeed, there was little in it which Colin would have objected to reveal to his mother. But the two human creatures were constrained to stand apart from each in the bonds of their individual nature-to question timidly and answer vaguely, and make queries which were all astray from the truth. The Mistress came behind her son and laid one hand on his shoulder, and with the other caressed and smoothed back the waves of brown hair of which she had always been so proud. "Your hair is just as long as ever, Colin," said the admiring mother; "but its no a' your mother's now," she said with a soft, little sigh. She was standing behind him that her eyes might not disconcert her boy, meaning to woo him into confidence and the opening of

his heart.

"I don't know who else cares for it," said Colin; and then he too was glad to respond to the unasked question. "My poor Alice," he said; "if I could but have brought her to you, motherShe would have been a daughter to you."

Mrs. Campbell sighed. "Eh, Colin, I'm awfu' hard-hearted," she said; "I canna believe in ony woman ever taking that place. I'm awfu' bigoted to my ain; but she would have been dearly welcome for my laddie's sake; and I'm

It

real anxious to hear how it a' was. was but little you said in your letters, and a' this night I've been wanting to have you to mysel', and to hear all that there was to say.”

"I don't know what there is to say," said Colin; "I must have written all about it. Her position, of course, made no difference to my feelings," he went on, rather hotly, like a man who in his own consciousness stands 'somewhat on his defence; "but it made us hasten matters. I thought if I could only have brought her home to you-

"It was aye you for a kind thought," said the Mistress; "but she would have had little need of the auld mother when she had the son; and Colin, my man, is it a' ended now ?"

"Heaven knows!" said Colin with a little impatience. "I have written to her through her father, and I have written to her by herself, and all that I have had from her is one little letter saying that her father had forbidden all further intercourse between us, and bidding me farewell; but--"

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'But," said the Mistress, "it's no of her own will; she's faithful in her heart? And if she's true to you, you'll be true to her? Isna that what you mean?"

"I suppose so," said Colin; and then he made a little pause. "There never was any one so patient and so dutiful," he said. "When poor Arthur died, it was she who forgot herself to think of us. Perhaps even this is not so hard upon her as one thinks."

"Eh, but I was thinking first of my ain, like a heartless woman as I am," said his mother. "I've been thinking it was hard on you."

He did not turn round his face to her as she had hoped; but her keen eyes could see the heightened colour which tinged even his neck and his forehead. "Yes," said Colin; "but for my part," he added, with a little effort, "it is chiefly Alice I have been thinking of. It may seem vain to say so, but she will have less to occupy her thoughts than I shall have, and-and the time may hang heavier.-You don't

like me to go to Oxford, mother?" This question was said with a little jerk, as of a man who was pleased to plunge into a new subject; and the Mistress was far too close an observer not to understand what her son meant.

"I like whatever is good for you, Colin,"she said; "but it was aye in the thought of losing time. I'm no meaning real loss of time. I'm meaning I was thinking of mair hurry than there is. But you're both awfu' young, and I like whatever is for your good, Colin," said the tender mother. She kept folding back his heavy locks as she spoke, altogether disconcerted and at a loss, poor soul; for Colin's calmness did not seem to his mother quite consistent with his love; and a possibility of a marriage without that foundation was to Mrs. Campbell the most hideous of all suppositions. And then, like a true woman as she was, she went back to her little original romance, and grew more confused than ever.

"I'm maybe an awfu' foolish woman," she said, with an attempt at a smile, which Colin was somehow conscious of, though he did not see it, "but, even if I am, you'll no be angry at your mother. Colin, my man, maybe it's no the best thing for you that thae folk at the castle should be here?"

"Which folk at the castle?" said Colin, who had honestly forgotten for the moment. "Oh, the Franklands! What should it matter to me?"

This time he turned round upon her with eyes of unabashed surprise, which the Mistress found herself totally unprepared to meet. It was now her turn to falter, and stammer, and break down.

"Eh, Colin, it's so hard to ken," said the Mistress. "The heart's awfu' deceitful. I'm no saying one thing or another; for I canna read what you're thinking, though you are my ain laddie; but if you were to think it best no to enter into temptation-"

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Meaning Miss Matty?" said Colin; and he laughed with such entire freedom that his mother was first silenced and

then offended by his levity. "No fear

of that, mother; and then she has Harry, I suppose, to keep her right."

"I'm no so clear about that," said Mrs. Campbell, nettled, notwithstanding her satisfaction, by her son's indifference; "he's away abroad somewhere; but I would not say but what there might be another," she continued, with natural esprit du corps, which was still more irritated by Colin's calm response,

"Or two or three others," said the young man; "but, for all that, you are quite right to stand up for her, mother; only I am not in the least danger. No, I must get to work," said Colin; "hard work, without any more nonsense; but I'd like to show those fellows that a man may choose to be a Scotch minister though he is Fellow of an English college "

The Mistress interrupted her son with the nearest approach to a scream which her Scotch self-control would admit of. "A Fellow of an English college," she said, in dismay, "and you troth-plighted to an innocent young woman that trusts in you, Colin! That I should ever live to hear such words out of the mouth of a son of mine!"

And, notwithstanding his explanations, the Mistress retired to her own room, ill at ease, and with a sense of coming trouble. "A man that's engaged to be married shouldna be thinking of such an awfu' off-put of time," she said to herself; "and ah, if the poor lassie is aye trusting to his coming, and looking for him day by day." This thought took away from his mother half the joy of Colin's return. Perhaps her cherished son, too, was growing "worldly," like his father, who thought of the "beasts even in his dreams. And, as for Colin himself, he, too, felt the invisible curb upon his free actions, and chafed at it in the depths of his heart when he was alone.

With all this world of work and ambition before him, it was hard to feel upon his proud neck that visionary rein. Though Alice had set him free in her little letter, it was still in her soft fingers that this shadowy bond remained. He had not repudiated it, even in his most secret thoughts; but, as soon as he

began to act independently, he became conscious of the bondage, and in his heart resented it. If he had brought her home, as he had intended, to his father's house, his young dependent wife, he probably would have felt much less clearly how he had thus forestalled the future, and mortgaged his very life.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE Balliol Scholarship was, however, too important a reality to leave the young candidate much time to consider his position-and Colin's history would be too long, even for the patience of his friends, if we were to enter into this part of his life in detail. Everybody knows he won the scholarship; and, indeed, neither that, nor his subsequent career at Balliol, are matters to be recorded, since the chronicle has been already made in those popular University records which give their heroes a reputation, no doubt temporary, but while it lasts of the highest possible flavour. He had so warm a greeting from Sir Thomas Frankland that it would have been churlish on Colin's part had he declined the invitations he received to the Castle, where, indeed, Miss Matty did not want him just at that moment. Though she was not the least in the world in love with him, it is certain that between the intervals of her other amusements in that genre, the thought of Colin had often occurred to her mind. She thought of him with a wonderful gratitude and tenderness sometimes, as of a man who had actually loved her with the impossible loveand sometimes with a ring of pleasant laughter, not far removed from tears. Anything "between them" was utterly impossible, of course-but, perhaps, all the more for that, Miss Matty's heart, so much as there was remaining of it, went back to Colin in its vacant moments, as to a green spot upon which she could repose herself, and set down her burden of vanities for the instant. This very sentiment, however, made her little inclined to have him at the Castle,

where there was at present a party staying, including, at least, one man of qualifications worthy a lady's regard. Harry and his cousin had quarrelled so often that their quarrel at last was serious, and the new man was cleverer than Harry, and not so hard to amuse; but it was difficult to go over the wellknown ground with which Miss Frankland was so familiar in presence of one whom she had put through the process in a still more captivating fashion, and who was still sufficiently interested to note what she was doing, and to betray that he noted it. Colin, himself, was not so conscious of observing his old love in her new love-making as she was conscious of his observation; and, though it was only a glance now and then, a turn of the head, or raising of the eyes, it was enough to make her awkward by moments, an evidence of feeling for which Miss Matty could not forgive herself. Colin consequently was not thrown into temptation in the way his mother dreaded. The temptation he was thrown into was one of a much more subtle character. He threw himself into his work, and the preparations for his work, with all the energy of his character; he felt himself free to follow out the highest visions of life that had formed themselves among his youthful dreams.

He thought of the new study on which he was about to enter, and the honours upon which he already calculated in his imagination as but stepping stones to what lay after, and offered himself up with a certain youthful effusion and superabundance to his Church and his country, for which he had assuredly something to do more than other men. And then, when Colin had got so far as this, and was tossing his young head proudly in the glory of his intentions, there came a little start and shiver, and that sense of the curb, which had struck him first after his confidence with his mother, returned to his mind. But the bondage seemed to grow more and more visionary as he went on. Alice had given him up, so to speak; she was debarred by her father from any correspondence with him, and might, No. 63.-VOL. XI.

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for anything Colin knew, gentle and yielding as she was, be made to marry some one else by the same authority; and, though he did not discuss the question with himself in words, it became more and more hard to Colin to contemplate the possibility of having to abridge his studies and sacrifice his higher aims to the necessity of getting settled in life. If he were "settled in life" to-morrow, it could only be as an undistinguished Scotch minister, poor, so far as money was concerned, and with no higher channel either to use or fame; and, at his age, to be only like his neighbours was irksome to the young man. Those neighbours, or at least the greater part of them, were good fellows enough in their way. far as a vague general conception of life and its meaning went, they were superior as a class in Colin's opinion to the class represented by that gentle curate of Wodensbourne, whose soul was absorbed in the restoration of his Church, and the fit states of mind for the Sundays after Trinity; but there were also particulars in which, as a class, they were inferior to that mild and gentlemanly Anglican. As for Colin, he had not formed his ideal on any curate or even bishop of the wealthier Church. Like other fervent young men, an eager discontent with everything he saw lay the bottom of his imaginations; and it was the development of Christianity-"more chivalrous, more magnanimous, than that of modern times"

that he thought of. A dangerous. condition of mind, no doubt; and the people round him would have sneered much at Colin and his ambition had he put it into words; but, after all, it was an ideal worth contemplating which he presented to himself. In the midst of these thoughts, and of all the future possibilities of life, it was a little hard to be suddenly stopped short, and reminded of Mariana in her moated grange, sighing, "He does not come." If he did come, making all the unspeakable sacrifices necessary to that end, as his mother seemed to think he should, the probabilities were that the door of the grange

would be closed upon him; and who could tell but that Alice, always so docile, might be diverted even from the thought of him by some other suitor presented to her by her father? Were Colin's hopes to be sacrificed to her possible faith, and the possible relenting of Mr. Meredith? And, alas! amid all the new impulses that were rising within him, there came again the vision of that woman in the clouds, whom as yet, though he had been in love with Matty Frankland, and had all but married Alice Meredith, Colin had never seen. She kissed her shadowy hand to him by times out of those rosy vapours which floated among the hills when the sun had gone down, and twilight lay sweet over the Holy Loch-and beckoned him on, on, to the future and the distance where she was. When the apparition had glanced out upon him after this old fashion, Colin felt all at once the jerk of the invisible bridle on his neck, and chafed at it; and then he shut his eyes wilfully, and rushed on faster than before, and did his best to ignore the curb. After all, it was no curb if it were rightly regarded. Alice had released, and her father had rejected him, and he had been accused of fortune-hunting, and treated like a man unworthy of consideration. So far as external circumstances went, no one could blame him for inconstancy, no one could imagine that the engagement thus broken was, according to any code of honour, binding upon Colin; but yet- This was the uncomfortable state of mind in which he was when he finally committed himself to the Balliol Scholarship, and thus put off that "settling in life" which the Mistress thought due to Alice. When the matter was concluded, however, the young man became more comfortable. At all events, until the termination of his studies, no decision, one way or other, could be expected from him; and it would still be two years before Alice was of the age to decide for herself. He discussed the matter-so far as he ever permitted himself to discuss it with any one-with Lauderdale, who managed

to spend the last Sunday with him at Ramore. It was only October, but winter had begun betimes, and a sprinkling of snow lay on the hills at the head of the loch. The water itself, all crisped and brightened by a slight breeze and a frosty sun, lay dazzling between its grey banks, reflecting every shade of colour upon them; the russet lines of wood with which their little glens were outlined, and the yellow patches of stubble, or late corn, still unreaped, that made the lights of the landscape, and relieved the hazy green of the pastures, and the brown waste of withered bracken and heather above. The wintry day, the clearness of the frosty air, and the touch of snow on the hills, gave to the Holy Loch that touch of colour which is the only thing ever wanting to its loveliness; a colour cold, it is true, but in accordance with the scene. The waves came up with a lively cadence on the beach, and the wind blew showers of yellow leaves in the faces of the two friends as they walked home together from the church. Sir Thomas had detained them in the first place, and after him the minister, who had emerged from his little vestry in time for half an hour's conversation with his young parishioner, who was something of a hero on the Holy Loch-a hero, and yet subject to the inevitable touch of familiar depreciation which belongs to a prophet in his own country. The crowd of church-goers had dispersed from the roads when the two turned their faces towards Ramore. Perhaps by reason of the yew-trees under which they had to pass, perhaps because this Sunday, too, marked a crisis, it occurred to both of them to think of their walk through the long ilex avenues of the Frascati villa, the Sunday after Meredith's death. was Lauderdale, as was natural, who returned to that subject the first.

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"It's a wee hard to believe that it's the same world," he said, "and that you and me are making our way to Ramore, and not to yon painted cha'amer, and our friend, with her distaff in her hand. I'm whiles no clear in my mind that we were ever there."