'If I tell her I left them about in the boys' way, she will arrive at the natural conclusion.'

'Do they call those things magnum bonum?' asked Janet, as the boys drifted away.

'Yes,' said her mother, looking at her rather wonderingly; and adding, as Janet coloured up to the eyes, My dear, have you any other association with the name?'

Many a time Janet had longed to tell all she knew; now, when so good an opportunity had come, all was choked back by the strange leaden weight of reserve, and shame in that long reserve.

She opened her eyes and stared as stupidly at her mother as Robin could have done, feeling an utter incapacity of making any reply; and Caroline, who had for a moment thought she understood, was baffled, and durst not pursue the subject for fear of betraying her own secret, deciding within herself that Janet might have caught up the word without understanding.

They were interrupted the next minute, and Janet ran away, feeling that she had had an escape, yet wishing she had not.

Caroline did effectually shelter her nephews under her general term 'the boys,' and if their mother was not conciliated, their fellowfeeling with her was strengthened, as well as their sense of honour. Nay, Johnny actually spent the next half-holiday in walking three miles and back to his old nurse, whom he beguiled out of a basket of plums-hard, little blue things, as unlike magnum bonums as could well be, but which his aunt received as they were meant, as full compensation; nay, she took the pains to hunt up a receipt, and have them well preserved, in hopes of amazing his mother.

It was indeed one difficulty that the two sisters in-law had such different notions of the aim and end of economy. The income at Kencroft had not increased with the family, which numbered eight, for there were two little boys in the nursery, and it was only by diligent housewifery that Mrs. Brownlow kept up the somewhat handsome establishment she had started with at her marriage. Caroline felt that she neither could nor would have made herself such a slave to domestic details; yet this was life and duty and interest to Ellen. Where one sister would be shabby, so that all her children might be free and on an equality, if they did not go beyond her, in all enjoyments, physical, artistic, or intellectual, the other toiled to keep up appearances, kept her children under restraint and in the background, and made all sorts of unseen sacrifices to the supposed duty of always having a handsome dinner for whoever the Colonel might bring in, and keeping the horses, carriages, and servants that she thought his due.

But then Ellen had a husband, and, as Caroline sighed to herself, that made all the difference! and she was no Serene Highness, and had no dignity.

The three girls from Kencroft did actually become pupils at the

Folly, but the beginnings were not propitious, for, in her new teacher's eyes, Jessie knew nothing accurately, but needed to have her foundations looked to-to practise scales, draw square boxes, and work the four first rules of arithmetic.

'Simple things,' complained Jessie to her mother, that I used to do when I was no bigger than Essie, and yet she is always teasing one about how and why! She wanted me to tell why I carried one.'

'Have a little patience for the present, my dear, your papa wants to help her just at present, and after this autumn we will manage for you to have some real good music lessons.'

'But I don't like wasting time over old easy things made difficult,' sighed Jessie.

'It is very tiresome, my dear; but your papa wishes it, and you see, poor thing, she can't teach you more than she knows herself; and while you are there, I am sure it is all right with Essie and Ellie.' 'She does not teach them a bit like Miss James,' said Jessie. makes their sums into a story, and their spelling lessons too. like a game.'

'She

It is

Indeed, Essie and Ellie were so willing to go off to their lessons every morning, that their mother often thought it could not be all right, and that the progress they undoubtedly made must be by some superficial trick; but as their father had so willed it, she submitted to the present arrangement, deciding that 'poor Caroline was just able to teach little children.'

The presence of Essie and Ellie much assisted in bringing Babie back to methodical habits, nor was she, in spite of her precocious intelligence, too forward in the actual drill of education to be able to work with her little cousins.

The incongruous elements were the two elder girls, who could by no means study together, since they were at the two opposite ends of the scale; but as Jessie was by no means aggressive, being in fact as sweet and docile a shallow girl as ever lived, things went on peaceably, except when Janet could not conceal her displeasure that Bobus would not share her contempt for Jessie's intellect.

If she told him that Jessie thought that the Odyssey was about a voyage to Odessa, and was written by Alfred Tennyson, he only declared that anything was better than being a spiteful cat; and when he came in from school, and found his cousin in wild despair over the conversion of 2,861 florins into half-crowns, he stood by, telling her every operation, and leaving her nothing to do but to write down the figures. He was reckless of Janet, who tried to wither them both by her scorn; but Jessie looked up with her honest eyes, saying

'I wish you hadn't put it into my head, Janet, for now I must rub it out and do it again, and it won't be so hard now Bobus has shown me how.'

'No, no, Jessie,' said Bobus; 'I wouldn't be bullied.'

'For shame, Bobus,' said his sister; 'how is she to learn anything in that way?'

'And if she doesn't?' said Bobus.

That's a disgrace.'

'A grace,' said provoking Bobus. She is much nicer as she is, than you will ever be.'

'Don't talk such nonsense,' said Janet, with an elder sisterly air. 'It is not kind to encourage Jessie to think any one can care for an empty-headed doll.'

'Empty-headed dolls are all the go,' said Bobus. 'Never mind, Jessie, a girl's business is to be pretty and good-humoured, not to stuff herself with Latin and Greek. You should leave that to us poor beggars !'

'Yes, I know, that's all your envy and jealousy,' retorted Janet.

All the time Jessie stood by, plump, gentle, and pretty, though with a certain cloud of perplexity on her white open brow, and as her aunt returned into the room, she said—

'I think my sum is right now, Aunt Caroline; but Bobus helped me. Must I do it over again.'

'You shall begin with it to-morrow, my dear,' said her aunt; 'then I daresay it will go off easily.'

Jessie thanked with an effusion of gratitude which made her prettier than ever, and then was claimed by Bobus to help him in the making of some paper bags that he needed for some of his curiosities.

Janet liked to fancy that it was beauty versus genius that made Jessie the greater favourite. She had not taken into account that she was always too much engrossed with her own concerns to be helpful, while Jessie's pretty dexterous hands were always at every one's service, and without in the least entering into the cause of science, she was invaluable in the museum, whenever her ideas of neatness and symmetry were not in too absolute opposition to the requirements of system.

The two little ones, Essie and Ellie, were equally graceful, or indeed still more so, as being still in their kittenhood, and their attitudes were so charming as to revive their aunt's artistic instincts.

All the earlier part of the year, when her time was her own, it had been mere wretchedness and heart-sickness to think of the art which had given her husband so much pleasure, and, but for Allen, the studio would never have been arranged. But no sooner was her time engrossed, than the artist fever awoke in her, and all the time she could steal by early rising, or on wet afternoons, and birthday holidays, was devoted to her clay.

Before the end of the autumn she had sent up to Mr. Acton some lovely little groups of children, illustrating Wordsworth's poems. She had been taught anatomy enough to make her work superior to that of most women, and Mr. Acton found no difficulty in disposing of them

to a porcelain manufactory, to be copied in Parian, bringing in a sum that made her feel rich.

Vistas opened before her sanguine eyes of that clay educating her son for the Magnum Bonum, her great thought. Her boys must be brought up to be worthy of the quest, high-minded, disinterested, and devoted, as well as intellectual and religious. So said their father ; and thus the Magnum Bonum had become very nearly a religion to her, giving her a definite aim and principle.

Unfortunately there was not much in her present surroundings to lead her higher. The vicar, Mr. Rigby, was a dull, weak man, of a worn-out type, a careful visitor of the sick and poor, but taking little heed to the educated, except as subscribers and Sunday-school teachers. Carey had done little in the first capacity, Janet had refused to act in the latter.

His sermons were very sleepy performances, except for a tendency to jumble up metaphors, that kept the audience from the Folly just awake enough to watch for them. The hearer was proud who could repeat by heart such phrases as 'let us not, beloved brethren, as the gaudy insects, flutter out life's little day, bound to the chariot wheels of vanity, whirling in the vortex of dissipation, until at length we lie moaning over the bitter dregs of the intoxicating draught.' Some of these became household proverbs at the Folly,' under the title of 'Rigdum Funnidoses' and might well be an extreme distress to the good, reverent, and dutiful Jessie.

Mrs. Rigby was an inferior woman, a sworn member of the Coffinkey clique, admiring and looking up to her Serene Highness as the great lady of the place, and wearing an almost abject manner when receiving good counsels from her. Neither of them commanded respect, nor were likely to change the belief, which prevailed at the Folly, that all ability resided among the London clergy.

OUR YOUNG LADIES, AS DESCRIBED BY THE
MINISTER'S DAUGHTER.*

A HIGHLAND STORY.

BY EUPHEMIA E. G. BUSSELL.

CHAPTER XXVII.

ROWANCROSS.

THE immense block of building looked blank and rayless as we drew up at the front. If there were any lights, the shutters prevented them from being seen. The hall door stood open, and the old laird's deerhound came out with ears and tail depressed, seemingly having

* Miss Macbride's language and opinions have been preserved.

nothing to do. He was going to pass us by, but changed his mind, went up to Alexa, and sliding his nose into her hand commenced to howl. He could not, poor brute, have taken a better way of saying, 'My master's dying; can you do nothing?'

The coachman had to ring ever so many times before anybody came; at last a man appeared whom I took to be a gillie, long-legged, dressed in coarse tartan, and with a bushy black beard. He was carrying a tallow candle in his hand, on which glittered a ring.

Alexa's instinct did not fail her here; she bowed as to a brother of Affleck's.

The lad scanned her curiously, as who should say, 'Is this the fine young lady who has promised to marry Affleck, but doubtless on the understanding that she is not to be expected to have anything to do with his kindred?' But her dress was almost as coarse as his own; she had made the least of herself instead of the most, and his gaze gradually became one of satisfaction. As his face softened, I seemed to recognise in him Æneas Lamont, the next in age to Affleck, who, when a child, had once or twice visited me at the Manse, and condescended to be bribed from fretting after his nurse by the promise of a piece.'

'Miss Alexa Mactavish!' he repeated, in a sort of astonishment, 'is this really you? And are you come to visit the poor old man? He's almost at his last, but I think he will see you.' 'I hope so; he was good enough to ask for me. the way?'

Will you show us

'Yes, I can do that. Whom have you with you? Does she want to come too? I believe it's reckoned a sight to see a man make his end, but I can't say I see anything in it very interesting to a stranger.'

'I'm no stranger,' said I, putting out my hand. 'Don't you mind Janetta Macbride, that used to give you "pieces" at the Manse, years before you ever left Rowan cross? It's not natural that Miss Alexa Mactavish should wish to go alone to a house that's got no lady in it, so I said I would bear her company. But ye needn't take me into your father's room if ye think he'll object.'

'He'll not take any notice,' said the lad, returning my shake of the hand very cordially. 'Come along, then; only don't frighten the poor old man by denouncing him, or talking goody either. He's past both, and may as well have a little peace here, if he's to have none there.'

I felt a cold shiver run through me. 'Oh, lad!' I said; 'if ye think that, be warned in time! Don't be so doited, when ye see a mad bull rush across the park to meet you, as not to get out of the way!'

He made no answer. Perhaps the danger Ewen was in at that moment, the young as well as the old, suddenly shaken, and his strength gone from him, checked a flippant reply.

He went on before us, carrying the candle, which only faintly, and