O strong hearts, guarding the birthright of our glory, Worth your best blood this heritage that ye guard! These mighty streams resplendent with our story, These iron coasts by rage of seas unjarred-- What fields of peace these bulwarks will secure! What vales of plenty these calm floods supply! Shall not our love this rough, sweet land make sure, Her bounds preserve inviolate, though we die? --C. G. D. ROBERTS. The fathers of the Scottish settlement were gathered about the stove in Store Thompson's shop. This emporium was a respectable rival of Pete Nash's tavern across the way. Anyone, weary of the noise and wrangling which characterised that lively establishment, might step across to Store Thompson's haven and find rest and quiet, a never-failing hospitality and a much better social atmosphere. To-night the company represented the best the settlement could produce, several of the MacDonalds and a few of the inhabitants of the Glen. Big Malcolm was among them. It was his first visit to the Glen since the day of his disgrace, and he had not yet quite recovered his old genial spirits. One small lamp burned dimly on the counter and the forms of boxes and barrels loomed up fantastically in shadowy corners. In the circle about the stove the men's faces shone out spectrally from the cloud of smoke produced by some half-dozen pipes. As usual, Store Thompson was taking the lead in the conversation. He stood leaning over the counter in the little ring of light, his spectacles pushed up on his benign-looking forehead, his finger-tips brought carefully together. In company with the schoolmaster, Store Thompson had begun his winter's course of reading and was more than usually oratorical. "Aye," he was saying, "a dictionary 's a graund institution; aye, jist a graund institution, like. When me an' the master now meets a word we dinna ken, we jist run him doon in the dictionary, an' there he is, ye see!" "Oh, books will be fine things," said Big Malcolm, "but that Hamish of ours will jist be no use when he will be getting his nose into one, whatever. And he will be making the wee man jist as bad. Eh, it's him that'll make the reader!" His eyes shone as they always did at any mention of his grandson. "Aye, Hamish is the man for the books!" cried Store Thompson enthusiastically. "How is he gettin' on wi' Ivanhoe?" "Och, he would be finishing it the night after he brought it home, indeed; and now the little upstart will be trying his hand at it whatever." "Feenishin' it in twa nichts!" cried Store Thompson, aghast at such extravagance. "Hut, tut! yon's no way to use a book. When me an' the wife read Ivanhoe last winter, we jist read a wee bit at a time for fear it wouldna last; it wes that interestin'. Aye, books is too scarce to be used yon way." "And what will you and the master be reading, this winter, James?" inquired Long Lauchie, who had just returned from one of his mental excursions.