big an' blue, an' sometimes we hae a forenicht's shootin' at the young craws owerby at the Laird's, an' sometimes it's a day amang the raspberry bushes, an' the twa bairns, nae doobt, like the rest, 'll be lookin' for birds' nests, and when they're tired they can lie doun in a Simmer day upon the Waterside an' listen to the crackin' o' the broom when the cods are burstin' an' the lavrocks singin' in the lift an' the yellow yites chatterin' back an' fore to ane anither, an' the linties singin' like a' that, an' as it grows near nicht an' the mavis an' the blackbird whistling an' the air so still an' the reek o' the lum rises up i' the air lang an' straucht like a blue cloud. But it'll be time for them to get to their beds by that time, an' they'll hae to say 'The Lord's My Shepherd' to their aunty, like twa guid bairns. When the laddie gets bigger he can work now an' then, ay or no as he likes. He micht ca' the kye out i' the mornin' afore he gangs to the schule, or bring them hame at nicht, maybe, an' the lassie micht learn to gie her auntie a bit hand. Although we hae a servant lass, there's no ane o's aboon helpin' anither. The ploughman chield gets his meat in the kitchen an' we a' eat the gither, juist. There's nae pride about Luckyslap. But there's aneuch an' to spare, an' aye a bite for a puir body. In the Winter time, when we hae a guid peat fire frae the tae weeks' en' to the tither, an' the days grow shorter, the twa bairns will be busy wi' their lessons an' they'll no hae far tae gang to the schule, for, ye see, it's juist doun the road an' alang the brae a mile an' a bittie, an' they're at the kirk bauk. The creatures 'll get to like it, for they'll be a wonder to mony ane, an' our fowk are awfu' guid to strangers, an' are mair ta'en up wi' young fowk that come in about than they are wi' them that they are brought up wi'."

The minds of the Bluebells were at rest. Preparations were set on foot for the departure of the Twa Bairns. During the intervening days until the sailing of the ship Tam, who seemed to be completely master of his time, as city employees usually were, acted as master of ceremonies and took Luckyslap everywhere. The great seaside resorts were visited and thoroughly explored by the two Scots worthies. Luckyslap walked

like one in a dream. Everything was a wonder to him, but he wanted to be going. ing. His mind continually reverted to the "neep seed," and the exact condition of the young turnips were discussed by him with much volubility.

"Ye see," he addressed Tam, "when you lippen to strangers you pit your back to a slap. I had the promise o' the feck o' the fowk i' the Hillocks that they wid gie a look round noo an' than an' see how the neep-seed took, an' when to begin hewin', but my mind's no easy, ye see. If the young neeps are allowed to rin up they'll never get the same grip o' the grund as if they were thinned at the richt time. The 'neep seed' was a kittle time for me to come awa' in, but the twa bairns-aye, we couldna sleep at nicht thinking about the twa bairns."

Jeems and Tam took Uncle Willie to Wall Street. Luckyslap had no faith in checks or drafts, or even in Bank of England notes. Gold sovereigns were Uncle William's sheet anchor. He had no objection to the odd change being paid in silver. He was a bi-metallist in a small way. At Mrs. Gordon's he had the soveheigns sewed in a moleskin bag he had brought with him, and sewed again with a double row of stitches to his inner garments, and, thus protected, he carried his precious burden, reaching with an inquiring hand to the place now and again to make sure that the package was still there.

The day of departure arrived. Luckyslap and the Twa Bairns were on deck.

The Bluebells were on the wharf. In the great moving on the face of the waters it seemed as if the mighty city, with the tender memories of their checkered child

hood, was turning away from the wondering children and fading from their view. Four other great ships, floating in line, passed out to sea with them. By and by the ships parted. One was nearly out of sight already, another seemed veering for southern seas, and another seemed to have turned back for something. By and by the sky was purple and saffron and cinnamon and dun, and the land of their childhood passed from the vision of the Twa Bairns in a golden. cloud.

(To Be Continued.)

We bought our first groceries of Mrs. Robert Phin, simply because she is an inimitable conversationalist. She is expansive, too, about family matters, and tells us certain of her "man's" faults which it would be more seemly to keep in the safe shelter of her own bosom.

Rab takes a wee drappie too much, it appears, and takes it so often that he has little time to earn an honest penny for his family. This is bad enough; but the fact that Mrs. Phin has been twice wed before, and that in each case she innocently chose a ne'er-do-weel for a mate, makes her a trifle cynical. She told me that she had laid twa husbands in the kirkyaird near which her little shop stands, and added cheerfully, as I made some sympathetic response, "An' I hope it'll no be lang afore I box Rab!"

One morning Mrs. Phin greeted me with some embarrassment.

"Maybe ye'll no ken me," she said, her usually clear speech a little blurred. "It's the teeth. I've mislaid 'em somewhere. I paid far too much siller for them to wear them ilka day. Sometimes I rest them in the tea box to keep them awa' frae the bairns, but I canna find them there. I'm thinkin' maybe they'll be in the rice, but I've been ower thrang to luik."

I purchased of Mrs. Nicholson, the baker, a quarter section of very appetizing ginger cake to eat with our afternoon tea, and I stopped in to buy more. She showed me a large round loaf for two shillings.

"No," I objected, "I cannot use a whole loaf, thank you. We eat very little at a time and like it perfectly fresh. I wish a small piece such as we had the other day."

Then ensued a discourse which I cannot render in the vernacular, more's the pity, though I understood it all too well for my comfort. The substance of it was this: That she couldna and wouldna tak'

it in hand to give me a quarter section of cake when the other three-quarters might gae dry in the bakery; that the reason she sold the small piece on the former occasion was that her daughter, her son-in-law and their three children came from Ballahoolish to visit her, and she gave them a high tea with no expense spared; that at this function they devoured three-fourths of a ginger cake, and just as she was mournfully regarding the remainder I came in and took it. off her hands; that she had kept a bakery for thirty years and her mother before her, and never had a two shilling ginger cake been sold in pieces before, nor was it likely ever to occur again; that if I, under Providence so to speak, had been the fortunate gainer by the transaction, why not eat my six pennyworth in solemn gratitude once for all, and not expect a like miracle to happen the next week? And finally, that two shilling ginger cakes were, in the very nature of things, designed for large families; and it was the part of wisdom for small families to fix their affections on something else, for she couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand to cut a rare and expensive article for a small customer.

The torrent of logic was over, and I said humbly that I would take the whole loaf.

"Verra weel, mam," she responded more affably, "thank you kindly; no, I couldna tak' it in hand to sell six pennyworth of that ginger cake and let one and sixpence worth gae dry in the bakery. A beautiful day, mam! Won'erful blest in weather ye are! Let me open your umbrella for you, mam!"

David Robb is the weaver. All day long he sits at his old-fashioned hand loom, which, like the fruit of his toil, belongs to a day that is past and gone.

David has small book learning, so he tells me; and, indeed, he had need to tell me, for I should never have discovered

it myself-one misses it so little when the larger things are all present!

A certain summer visitor, a compatriot of ours, bought a quantity of David's orange-colored wincey, and finding that it wore like iron, wished to order more. She used the word "reproduce" in her telegram. The word "reproduce" was not in David's vocabulary, and putting back his spectacles he told me his difficulty. He had called at the Free Kirk manse-the meenister was na at hame; then to the library-it was closed, then to the Established manse-the meenister was awa. At last he obtained a glance at the schoolmaster's dictionary, and, turning to "reproduce," found that it meant "nough but mak owre again," and with an amused smile he turned to his loom.

Notwithstanding his unfamiliarity with lang-nebbit words, David has absorbed a deal of wisdom in his quiet life,

though, so far I can see, his only books have been the green tree outside his window, a glimpse of the distant ocean and the toil of his hands.

But I sometimes question if, as many scholars are not made as marred in this wise, for, to the seeing eye, the waving leaf and the far sea, the daily task, one's own heartbeats and one's neighbor'sthese teach us in good time to interpret Nature's secrets, and man's, and God's as well.

We have been reading Burns and Allan Ramsay and we are now able to write in the Scottish dialect. Our first letter in that classic tongue is addressed to certain chosen spirits in America. Here it is: "To My Trusty FieresMony's the time I has ettled to send ye a screed, but there was aye something that cam' ' the gait. It wisna that I couldna be fashed, for aften hae I thocht o' ye and my heart has been wi' ye

mony's the day. There's no muckle fowk frae Ameriky hereawa; they're a' jist Fife bodies, an' a lass canna get her tongue roun' their thrapple-taxin' words ava, so it's like I may drap a' the sweetness o' my gude mither-tongue.

"It's a duleful nicht, an an awfu' blash is ragin' withoot. Fanny's awa' at the gowf rinnin' aboot wi' a bag o' sticks after a wee bit ba', an' Sally an' me are hame by oor lane. Laith will the lassie be to weet her bonny shoon, but lang ere the play'll be ower she'll weet her hat aboon.

A gust o' win' is skirlin' i' the noo, an' as we luik ower the faem, the haar is risin', weetin' the green swaird wi' misty shooers.

"Yestreen was a caum Simmer gloamin', sae sweet an' bonnie that while the sun was sinkin' down i' the westlan' we daundered ower the muir. As we cam' through the scented birks we saw a trottin' burnie wimplin' 'neath the whiteblossomed slaes and bickerin'doun the hillside; an' while a herd laddie lilted ower the fernie brae a cushat croodled loesomely douni' the dale.

"We put off oor shoon, sae blithe were we, kilted our coats a little aboon the knee an' paidelt i' the burn, gettin' gey an' weet the while. Then Sally pu'd the gowans wat wi' dew an' twined her broo wi' tasselled broom, while I had a wee crackie wi' Tibbie Buchan, the flesher's dochter frae Aul Reekie. Tibbie's nae gigglin' gawkie like the lave ye ken; she's a sonsie lass, as sweet as my hinny pear, wi' her twa pawky een o' bonnie blue an' her yallow hair snoddit up fu' sleek.

"We were unco gleg to win hame when a' this was dune, an' after steekin' the door, to sit an' toast our toes at the bit bleeze. Miekle thocht we o' the gentles ayont the sea, an' sair grat we for the freends we kent lang syne in our ain countree.

Late at nicht, Fanny, the couthy lass. cam ben the house speerin' for baps an' bannocks.

"Hoots, woman!' cried out Sally, 'the auld carline i' the kitchen is i' the boxbed, an' weel aneuch ye ken is lang syne cuddled doun.'

"Ow, ay!' said Fanny, straikin' her

curly pow; 'then fetch me parritch ́an' dinna be lang wi' them, for I've lickit a lass at the gowff, an' I could eat twa caups o' parritch gin I had them!'

"Losh, lassie,' said I, 'gie ower makin' sae muckle din. Ye ken very weel ye'll get nae parritch the nicht. I'll rin an' fetch yet a piece an' syrup to stap yer gab a wee.'

"Blathers an' havers!' cried Fanny, but she blinkit bonnily the while, an' when the tea was weel maskit she smoored her wrath an' stappit her mou' wi' ait-meal bannocks. We aye keep them i' the hoose, for the auld servant bodie is gey an' bad at cookin' an' she's that dour an' dowie that we hardly daur to speak till her.

"In sic' like diversions pass the lang Simmer days in bonnie braid Scotland, but I canna write ony mair the nicht, for it's the wee sma' 'oor ayont the twal'.

"Like the aud wife's parrot, 'we dinna speak muckle, but we're deevils to think," an' we're aye thinkin' aboot ye. Fair fa' ye a! Lang may yer lum reek, an' may prosperity attend oor clan! Aye yer gude frien'!"

WORDS OF WISDOM.

First keep thyself in peace, and then shalt thou be able to make peace among others. Thomas a Kempis.

A man who does not know how to learn from his mistakes turns the best schoolmaster out of his life.-Beecher.

Everything that happens to us leaves some trace behind; everything contributes imperceptibly to make us what we are.-Goethe.

Sense shines with a double lustre when it is set in humility. An able and yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom. -William Penn.

True goodness is like the glow-worm in this, that it shines most when no eyes, except those of heaven, are upon it.Hare.

If we could expel all pride, vanity, self-seeking, desire for applause and promotion-if we should be utterly emptied of all that-the Spirit would come as a rushing, mighty wind to fill us.-A. J. Gordon.