On leaving the churchyard, I was fortunate enough to forgather with an old man, from whom I learned the melancholy story of her who occupied the older-looking grave. She was young and beautiful. Accident had deprived her father of that wealth which a long life of untiring industry had enabled him to lay past for his children; and he did not long survive its loss. Fearful of being a burden to her mother, who had a son and another daughter besides herself to provide for out of the slender pittance which remained to her on her husband's death, Clara Douglas accepted a situation as a governess, and sought to earn an honourable independence by those talents and accomplishments which had once been cultivated for mere amusement. The brother of Clara, shortly afterwards, obtained an appointment in the island of Madeira. Unfortunately for Clara, a young officer, a relative of the family in which she resided, saw her, and was smitten with her charms. He loved, and was beloved again. The footing of intimacy on which he was in the house, procured him many interviews with Clara. Suddenly his regiment was ordered to the Continent; and when the young ensign told the sorrowful tidings to Clara, he elicited from her a confession of her love. Months passed away--Waterloo was fought and won--and Ensign Malcolm was among those who fell. When the death list reached Scotland, many were the hearts it overpowered with grief; but Clara Douglas had more than one grief to mourn: sorrow and shame were too much to bear together, and she fled from the house where she had first met him who was the cause of all. None could tell whither she had gone. Her mother and sister were agonised when the news of her disappearance reached them. Every search was made, but without effect. A year all but two weeks passed away, and still no tidings of her, till that very day, two boys seeking for pheasants' nests upon the top of a hillock overgrown with furze--which the old man pointed out to me at a short distance from the place where we stood--accidentally stumbled upon an object beneath a fir-tree. It was the remains of a female in a kneeling posture. Beneath her garments, by which she was recognised as Clara Douglas, not a vestige of flesh remained. There was still some upon her hands, which had been tightly clasped together; and upon her face, which leant upon them. Seemingly she had died in great agony. It was supposed by some that she had taken poison. "If your time will permit," added the old man, as he wiped away a tear, "I will willingly show you the place where her remains were found. It is but a short distance. Come."