The promise of rare beauty which her infancy had held out was more than realized. There was a spirituality about those dark-blue eyes, in every graceful movement—a native ease and sweetness of manner so unusual among the classes in which she moved—so unlike the frank, noisy ways and ruddy countenances of her younger brothers and sisters, that Margaret often gazed upon her with a wondering sigh and a trembling of heart, she could not tell why. Alice had been reared with more than maternal tenderness—a fond yearning over her deserted helplessness—a sympathy for those who must have mourned the loss of such a child, together with her own irresistible winningness, had led Margaret unconsciously to indulge the child of her adoption even more than the members of her own little flock; but Ally was one of those rare natures in whom indulgence only brings forth warmer, purer feelings of love and gratitude, and even from babyhood, as Margaret would often say, she seemed like an angel sent down to them from Heaven. Sweet Alice McLane had not arrived at the age of sixteen without admirers. Lonely as was the situation of the cottage, many had been attracted thither by the fame of such a jewel. But there was a quiet dignity and purity about the gentle girl that repulsed the most presuming; and Ally was still, child-like, happy in her home, without a wish to leave it, at least so far as was known to her own heart. There was, indeed, one, who had been a play-fellow from childhood, being the son of their only neighbor within many miles, who was ever a welcome guest at the cottage, beneath whose glance her own never drooped, nor the painful blush rose to her transparent cheek—and why was it? Because Dugald Lindsay had never spoken of the trembling hopes that lay nestling at his heart, though they had wandered together for hours over the hills, or sat side by side before the bright fire, in the winter evenings, while he entertained them with merry tales; and though Ally loved him dearly, yet it was with the pure, happy love of a sister. So they lived from day to day, unconscious of the cloud that was gathering over the future happiness of one, and the brightest hopes of the other. CHAPTER III. Donald McLane was a hard-working man, and seldom was any recreation beyond the quiet enjoyment of his fire-side and home-circle indulged in. It was therefore an occasion of no little joy among the little folks, and perhaps not less so with the older heads who showed less boisterous happiness, when, on the return of the annual fair, a whole holyday was promised with a visit to the village where it was held.