confident men, was always bragging-puffed up with conceit. When we meet with such fellows on board our vessels, they are a grand prize for the wags among the sailors, and their pride is soon taken out of them."

Effie sat and listened attentively to the conversation, though she took no part in it save by her intelligent eye and kindling cheek. She lived in old-fashioned days, when the young were trained. to keep silence before their elders, and to show a deference to age and wisdom. However, when called upon by her father to get supper ready for the party, she quickly and cleverly covered the table and spread out the homely meal, attending quietly to the comfort of the guests.

When ten o'clock sounded from the old church tower, the visitors left the house for their different homes, and the smith, taking down his large Bible from the shelf, where it occupied an honoured place, read a chapter from its sacred page, following the reading by a simple, earnest prayer, in which he gave thanks for the safe return of his young friend from the dangers of the deep, and commended the distracted Church and country to the watchful care of the Shepherd of Israel.

Effie, after she had "gathered the fire" and bade her father good-night, went up to her little atticroom, and before she retired to rest drew aside the

curtain of her window and looked long on the fairylike landscape stretched out before her, bathed in the silver light of the moon, while the still soft air was filled with the murmur of the burn which wound round a corner of the house, the pleasing monotony of the sound only broken now and then by a voice proclaiming the town still awake and astir. There was something like witchery in the time and place, and as Effie lingered and gazed, I fear thoughts of her old friend Davie Gordon obtruded themselves upon her mind more than she herself approved.

And how felt Gordon to Effie now, since they had met after years of absence?

She's bonny, far bonnier than I thought she would be," he exclaimed, in answer to Mysie's question when he entered the glen kitchen that night, adding with a voice of interest, "But, Mysie, I doubt she is ower bonny to have been passed by. Has none o' your landsmen ta'en a fancy to her, do ye think."

'Mony a ane fancies her, but I never heard o' her fancying ony. It's even said the young laird o' Briary Park wad gang far enough for a kind glance o' her eye, but Effie has been ower weel brought up by her worthy father to look at the like o' him.”

"Do ye mean Arthur Harvey?" asked Gordon, remembering his old friend of the smithy long ago.

“'Deed, the very same," said Mysie; "and a grandlooking man he is, and a proud one too, as are they a' at Briary Park."

"And what right has he," asked Gordon in angry tones, “to fancy a village girl? Let him keep amongst his own set."

"You're right there," answered his friend, "an' 'deed, Davie, if ye're wise, ye'll stick in for her yersel; mind, 'Faint heart never won fair lady.""

Weel, I think," he said, laughing, "that after a', I hae the best right to her; naebody cared for her like me when she was a bairn."

"Ay, that ye hae," replied Mysie, "an' I aye said ye would come hame a grand man some day an' marry Effie, but the maister laughed at me. Weel, yer ain will no gang past ye, that's ae thing clear, an' if it's so ordained yere to get Effie, the hale world couldna' separate ye. An' I can tell ye this, whaever gets her will be a happy man, for though she's so young an' bonny, she's a heap o' sense, an' her head's no the least turned wi' a' the admiration she gets. I often think," she added, "she has been much indebted to Mr. and Miss Ramsay; they have taken such pains to gie her education beyond the common."

'Weel, Mysie, ye'll speak a gude word for me, will you not, for the sake o' langsyne?" answered the sailor, as he took the candle from the hand of his

friend to light himself to bed; but he, too, before returning to rest, looked out on the same lovely scene as Effie viewed from her window, and thoughts of the young girl filling his heart at that moment, he vowed that she, and she alone, would be his wife.

It was a life's story begun for two human hearts. The Heavenly Weaver was sitting by the loom to superintend and guide the forming of the web, which must, thread after thread, be woven; and thus it always is; the web of our life is woven for us; threads may be broken and tangled, which we, with our poor mortal fingers cannot join together again. But God can, and God alone, and in the end we will see the full pattern, though made up of small things-minute mosaics, to be most perfect and complete, and only one which the Eternal hand could have put together.

CHAPTER XVI.

"Beware of jealousy. It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on."-SHAKESPEARE.

AVID Gordon had been going and coming to the Glen for some weeks, while his vessel was being reloaded in a neighbouring port. When at the Glen he never failed visiting the smithy at Grey Craigs, to have a talk with his old friend Martin, and get a sight of Effie, to whom he was getting more and more attached. But she was too shy and quiet in his presence, he could not make out whether or not she viewed him with feelings deeper than friendship. Sometimes they met at a neighbour's house, but Effie, keeping amongst her young companions, seemed, as the young sailor thought, scarcely to recognise his presence, and yet, had he known it, not a word he uttered, not a movement he made, had escaped her notice; but she was proud-it was her besetting sin-and she felt that Davie Gordon was getting above her, and making a name and position in the world, and so she would not let him be fettered to her-he might marry, she