‘Old sermons!’ I exclaimed to myself as I left her. ‘What a singular girl she is. Fancy----’ But my reflections were cut short, for I ‘lifted up mine eyes’ and saw a mountain ash--they call them ‘rowan trees’ here--full of berries. Sophy, such a tree is the most beautiful object in nature; there is no way of describing it, no way of putting its beauty into words. If you doubt what I say, look well at the next one you see, and then tell me if I am wrong. Good-night. Ever yours affectionately, HUBERT BLAKE. P.S.--I mean to get M. to sit for her portrait to-morrow; but I see that in order to gain this end I shall have to use all my skill in diplomacy, both with the young lady and with her respected father. H. B. CHAPTER III. THE THIRD LETTER. _Hubert Blake to Sophy Meredith._ THE CASTLE FARM, MUIRBURN, N.B., _September 17_. MY DEAR SOPHY, It did not occur to me, when I agreed to consider myself Mr. Lindsay’s guest until to-day, that the arrangement would entail my spending the greater part of a glorious autumn day within the walls of the Muirburn Free Kirk--but you shall hear. I suspected, from something which fell from my host at breakfast, that the excuses which I intended to offer for my not accompanying the family to church would not be considered sufficient; but when I ventured to hint at something of the kind my remark was received by such a horrified stare (not to speak of the look of consternation on Margaret’s beautiful face), that I saw that to have made any further struggle for freedom would have been a positive breach of good manners. I submitted, therefore, with as good a grace as I could; and I was afterwards given to understand that to have absented myself from ‘ordinances’ that Sunday would have been little short of a scandal, seeing that it happened to be ‘Sacrament Sunday.’ If you ask a Scotchman how many sacraments there are, he will answer, if he remembers the Shorter Catechism, two. If, however, he is taken unawares, he will answer, one. Baptism is popularly considered to be a mere ceremony, of no practical importance to the infant recipient of it. It is regarded chiefly as an outward sign and token of the respectability of the parents, since it is only administered to the children of well-behaved people. ‘The Sacrament’ means the Lord’s Supper, which is administered in Presbyterian churches generally four times, but in country places often only twice a year. This, as it happened, was one of the ‘quarterly’ Communions, and as such popularly considered as of less dignity than those which occur at the old-fashioned seasons of July and January.