The love betwixt Jeanie and the young shepherd was not one of a day. It had already been of years standing, and dated far back, almost into the childhood of each. By sunny braes, in green meadows, alongside of whimplin brooks, they had been used to meet, seemingly by chance, until such meetings grew necessary to their very existence, and their love—pure and holy as that between the angelic choristers—became intermixed with all their thoughts and feelings, and colored all their views of life. And all this time Jeanie was growing more beautiful daily, until she became the flower of the valley. Her voice was like that of the cushat in its sweetest cadence—her eye was as blue and sunny as the summer ether—and the smiles that wreathed her mouth came and went like the northern lights on a clear December eve. Thus beautiful, she had not been without many suitors; but to all she turned a deaf ear. Many of them were far above her station in life, but this altered not her determination. Nor did her father, though perhaps, like many of his neighbors, he attached more importance to such offers than Jeanie, attempt to influence her. He only stipulated that her lover should obtain a farm before his marriage. We have seen how his repeated failures in this, and his hopelessness of attaining his object, unless at a very distant period, had at length driven him to seek his fortune elsewhere. We are telling no romantic tale, but one of real life; and in real life years often seem as hours, and hours as years. We shall make no excuse, therefore, for passing over an interval of more than two years. It was the gloamin hour when Jeanie and her father sat at their humble threshold. The face of the maiden was sad almost to tears; while that of the father wore a sad and anxious expression. They had been convening, and now the old man resumed their discourse. “Indeed, Jeanie,” he said, “God knows I would na urge ye do that which is wrong; but we hae suffered and suffered much sin’ Willie left us. Twa years and a half, amaist a third, hae past sin’ that day. Do not greet, my dochter, an’ your auld father may na speak that which is heavy on his mind,” and he ceased, and folded the now weeping girl tenderly to his bosom. “No, no, father, go on,” sobbed Jeanie, endeavoring to compose herself, an effort in which she finally succeeded. Her father resumed. “I am growing auld, Jeanie, aulder and aulder every day; my shadow already fills up half my grave—and the time canna be far awa, when I shall be called to leave you alone in the warld.” “Oh! say not so,” sobbed Jeanie, “you will yet live many a year.”