first to detect the reappearance of this remarkable star-stranger, and your immortality into all time shall be more secure than if you wrote an epic to rival the Iliad, or a tragedy equal to Hamlet or Othello. The name and memory of George Palitch, the amateur peasant astronomer, who was so fortunate as to obtain the earliest glimpse of Halley's Comet on its first return to perihelion after its periodicity had been so boldly, and as some thought so rashly asserted, is more secure in that connection than if, either as king or conqueror, he had all the honours of the most imperishable brass or marble. A hundred years ago or more, when Highlanders were more superstitious than they are now, or when, to be more correct, they took less pains to conceal their superstitious beliefs than at the present day, a certain hamlet in a remote part of the country was sadly troubled by an "evil eye," whose unhallowed powers wrought "mickle woe," to the manifest loss and discomfort of the good people around. The cows no longer yielded their lacteal treasures in the desired abundance, nor did the calves grow and thrive, as calves in good keeping should. Churns, however shaken and jolted, refused to turn out their hebdomadal pot of butter; or if, after much weary labour, they did reluctantly yield any, it was found to be pale and rancid as unsalted suet in the dog-days. Stirks and other young "beasts," though the rents depended on them, sickened and dwined and died, without apparent reason; and even children, hitherto in rude and ruddy health enough, were frequently prostrated by sudden and unaccountable illnesses. That an "evil eye" of more than ordinary virulence and power was at work was at last conceded even by the most sceptical as to such influences, and suspicion straightway fell upon a lone old woman, who lived in a hut on the outskirts of the township. Originally a stranger to the district, and of a taciturn and retiring disposition, she had long been looked upon with suspicion and dislike, and now a number of young men resolved to be revenged on her as the secret author of all that was amiss in the hamlet. At a late hour one dark night they proceeded to the poor old woman's hut, with the intention of setting fire to the roof and burning it about her ears, not caring very much either even if the "evil-eyed witch" herself, as they called her, should be buried under the burning rafters of her cottage. As the young men noiselessly surrounded the hut, they found that the old woman was just about retiring for the night, and as some of them stood at her window, and looked and listened, they could see her, by the light of a bog pine fire, kneel at her bedside, and after a little they heard her repeat the following prayer:--