wick for her mother’s cruizie. All these soft recollections proved too much for poor Peggy, as she ca’d Hawkie; the girl put up her apron to her eyes to dry the blinding tears which rendered her more incapable of detecting prowlers in her vicinity. Then with the practical agility of the riever of old, the laird ‘cam’ skipping ower the hill’ from the little hollow on the other side, to which he and Balcairnie had ridden, and where the latter stayed with the horses. In a moment Jamie Ramsay was by the sorrowful girl’s side, detaining her when she sought to retreat. Peggy wore her summer house dress, the pretty light cotton jacket which has been immortalised by Wilkie and Sir William Allen. It had a little collar or ‘neck,’ turned over where the sunburn of the throat met the whiteness of the bosom, and was only confined at the waist by the string of her apron. Her round arms were bare to the elbow, the sleeves of her jacket being rolled up for convenience’ sake. The arms were mottled and dimpled like those of a child. Her brown little feet too were bare. Her uncovered hair was arranged in the most primitive style--after all it is the fashion of the great Greek statues. The locks ‘which the wind used to blaw’ were ‘shed’ behind the ears, wound round the head, rippling in natural ripples as they were wound, until they were fastened in a knot at the back of the shapely head. Yet no stately ball-room belle in flowing gauze or rustling brocade, with high-heeled shoes and a higher powdered _tête_, had ever appeared half so sweet as Peggy to the enamoured young laird. He was not caught in undress. He came a-courting her--as he was bound to do, though she had been a beggar maid, and not merely an industrious cotter lass, who supported herself and her mother by the fruits of her honest industry. He wore his best snuff-brown coat, his last flowered waistcoat, his dress buckles in his shoes, with his dark hair combed carefully and neatly back and tied in a _queue_, the riband of which, in skilfully disposed bows and ends, hung half-way down his shoulders. ‘I mauna bide. Let me gang, laird. Oh! why are you here, when I canna lichtlie my mither’s word?’ cried the faithful and despairing Peggy, with streaming eyes and heaving bosom, torn as she was by conflicting obligations. ‘Na, but hear me, Peggy,’ insisted Drumsheugh, strong to carry the day in his confidence in the honesty of his intentions, and the truth of what he was going to say. ‘Take a message from me to your mother, and she will not stand in our gate, or make another thrawn rule to keep us apart. Tell her I am willing to join hands with you and exchange written lines. Lass, I’ll take the half-merk with you the morn if you like; neither king nor minister has power to come between us after that. You’ll be to all intents and purposes my wife and the young Leddy of Drumsheugh from that moment.’