fashioned ways of sitting ben the house by themselves, but lived in the kitchen with their servants. Such singing and bantering and story-telling there was round the ingle at night, when the lassies had got to their wheels, and the lads to the mending of their horse gear, or any other job they had in hand. There wasna a clash (gossip) in the whole parish that didna find its way to Haughead-you see, they had so many visitors dropping in on them; and I'm sure if old Mr. Maunder, their minister. who was never thought much of as a divine in the country side-it was said he got his kirk from preaching another man's sermon could have heard them criticising his discourses on the Monday nights, it might have done him muckle good.

That was the minister, maybe you'll mind, that went by the name of Auld Nick in the country. He had a sermon on the character of Nicodemus that he used to preach on every special occasion; it was his best, you see. Well, he was on his way one morning to preach on the fast day in a neighbouring parish, with it in his pouch. As he came near the manse, he heard some folk talking on the other side of a high hedge, where was a short cut to the kirk; and being a curious (inquisitive) body, he trod very softly, that he might hear what they were saying to each other.

"Wha's to preach for us the day?" says one old wife to another.

"Hoot! wha suld it be but 'Auld Nick'?" says her neighbour.

I trow Mr. Maunder never preached that sermon again; but for all that, the name stuck by him.

Well, as I was saying, the mistress was very good to her servants, and particularly when any of them, as would sometimes happen, got taken up with sweethearts, poor things, she wasna hard on them. She minded-what most mistresses forget-tha. the had been once young hersell, and that a colt must have its fling before it settles down to draw the plough, and a kittling its play before it grows into the sober old cat that lies beside your fire. So many a night she put on the gathering peat with her own hands, and other bits of work, without making a stir about it. And I dare say she wasna the worse served for 't-she was a wise woman, was the mistress! while many a cantie marriage was made up at the farm.

Gavin's only daughter, Bell, was the beauty of the parish. Oh, but she was a bonnie lassie, with een like diamonds, black shining hair as soft and glossy as silk, and a skin like the very cream. And then she had a colour in her face like that of a wild

rose, and such teeth when she opened her mouth to laugh-and at one time she was aye laughing-so small and white and regular. They were as white as milk; and you ken, Mr. Matthew, there's a verse of the Bible which says, "His teeth shall be white with milk." I trow Bell had no other thing to whiten them with. Bell's shape was so easy and genty that folk that didna ken her would often take her for a leddy; but it wasna by lacing herself tight or sitting with her hands in her lap that Bell came by it. No, no, Bell had her work to do, and she did it well; it would have been strange if she didna with so clever a mother.

lassie, though very fond, like most young folk, of ploys and merrymakings. She was a light-hearted thing, aye going about her work singing like a bird; and the young men said that a sight of her face was as blithesome as summer. There never was a cheerier creature at one time; and 'deed she was as blithe in her short gown and homespun coat at her work as when she had got on all her pearlings at night. Ill-natured folk didna scruple to say she was light-headed, but that wasna true. Bell knew she was bonnie. How could the lassie help it as long as there was a looking-glass in her father's house, and so many young fellows doing their best to tell her o't? but she just joked and laughed with her joes as she did with everybody. She gave no more encouragement to one than another, unless it might be to Allan Dempster, the young miller. Folk did say that she had a liking to him, but nobody kent truly, not even her mother, who was quick enough at the uptake. Allan and Bell had first got acquainted at some ploy, and the lad had been coming about her for more than a year; but at any rate Bell seemed in no hurry to settle. Maybe she didna like to give up her liberty so soon, or to relinquish all her joes for the sake of one, even though she might like him the best. After all, I fear she was no better than a flirting cuttie, or she would have preferred one true loving heart and a quiet comfortable home of her own to such vanities.

Allan's father was a miller down the water; he was a rich old carle; his wife was dead, and the lad was his only bairn. He had a long tack (lease) of the mill, and everybody thought that Allan was a good match even for Gavin Johnstone's daughter. But there's many a slip between the cup and the lip, as what I have to tell will prove.

As far as looks could win favour, Allan had little cause to fear. He was as comely a lad as you could see at kirk or market, straight and tall, and manly-looking, with a bit laughing twinkle in his blue ee that took with folk wonderfully. He was the best curler in the parish, too; it was just beautiful to see how nicely he balanced the stone, and with what a birr he made it flee from his hand along the ice. The parish was aye sure to win the game when Allan Dempster played, and I have heard that he could even beat the Laird of Dripdeen himsell, whe was counted the best player on that side of Borgie water. And Allan was a douce lad; he was never absent from the kirk, and though he had a spank of fun in him, he never allowed it to carry him ower far. He helped his father with the mill-they had a man forbye-and, well-a-wat, they had a braw, wellplenished house at the mill town, for I was once in't before the quarrel with Bell; she sinned against her own mercies, poor lassie.

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Allan, it was kent long afterwards, took the report very sore to heart; and 'deed everybody else as well as him believed it. He was ower much hurt, it's like, with her fickleness to think of trying to make her change her mind again, but he couldna endure the place after hearing what was likely to happen, so you'll no hinder him one fine morning from setting off to the borough town where a recruiting sergeant was busy, and listing himself for a sodger. No doubt the poor lad felt that he couldna stay at home and see the lass that had once been his married to another man. He went about it very quietly, and his own letter to his father brought the first news of what he had done, for Greenshiels parish was good ten miles from the town, and news was long of travelling in these days. The letter was written from the seaport just before they were to embark. He gave his father no reason for his conduct, but that he was wearying for a change and behoved to have it, and told him that he was going with the regiment he had entered to Spain to fight the French. He hoped, he said, to return in a year or two, and he asked his father to forgive him and pray for him.

Poor old John Dempster! it was a great surprise and grief to him to hear that his only son had become a sodger. Nobody could account for it, for Allan had been such a steady and kindly lad that a roving disposition was the last thing people would have suspected in him; but now all were agreed that "ye never ken folk." John took on very ill about it, and for long looked so dowie and broken down that everybody pitied him. But as Allan said nothing in his letter about Bell, he never suspected that she was to blame in the matter. All his desire now was to read the newspapers, and hear the news from Spain. The sough (rumour) of a battle there kept him from sleeping for nights, and from being a hearty stout old carle, he changed into a frail feckless man.

Letters came from Allan, but they were at long intervals, as they behoved to be, seeing that the army was almost aye on the march, and the country there in a most unsettled state. But oh, how these letters were prized, and lent about from house to house till the whole parish had them most by heart! Gavin Johnstone himself had them to read, but little did he suppose what an interest his bonnie daughter took in them. Her name, she saw, was never mentioned in them, and she couldna learn from them whether Allan had forgotten her or no, or if he knew she was still unmarried. But she thought that his father, who kent nothing of what had been between them, wasna likely to have told him in his letters. Poor Bell! she was even more to be pitied than the old man, for he could speak of his grief, but she had to shut up hers in her bosom.

From the moment the news of Allan's departure had reached Haughead the poor lassie had lost heart. It came upon her with an awful suddenness, and if her folk hadna been so taken up with lament

The first two or three weeks were the worst for preserving her secret, for then everybody was talking and conjecturing about Allan, and grieving for his old father who was left alone in his old age. But after a while the matter was less spoken about, unless just when a letter had come.

She would fain have persuaded herself at first that it was all a dream, and that she would see him again in the kirk on Sabbaths as she had done since they quarrelled. Whiles she thought that he had maybe just pretended to enlist to try her, and that ere long he would come back and all would be as before; and when this notion came into her mind her former pride and anger would rise, and she would think of how she would humble him yet, and make him glad to be friends with her again on her own terms. Poor Bell! the leaven hadna yet left her, but it wasna long before it was well weeded out.

She had to give up this hope at last, though she clung to it till the first letter reached his father from Spain; and then came the wild remorse and the fearful desolation of a forsaken heart that has itself to blame. She thought on all the provocation that she had given Allan Dempster by trifling and sporting with his leal affection; how she had tried to seem cold and indifferent when she was far from feeling it; how she had been the cause of separating him from his father, who, she heard, was just bowed down with his grief; and she felt that if Allan fell in the war she would have his death to answer for. It was an awful thought. Many a time did the poor lassie hide herself among the trees in the fir wood, and there, unseen by anybody, greet as if her very heart was breaking. None kent what she suffered till long after, not even her own family. Of course they saw that a great change had come over her; they couldna but do that, for her bonnie black een were grown dull and heavy-no wonder, with the greeting-and her cheeks had lost all their colour; but the long coldness between her and Allan, and the courting with Jamie Gourlay, kept them from putting it to the right cause.

Many nonsense things were said about her, and many folk thought that Gavin Johnstone was to lose his only daughter in a dwining. It was no unlike it: she that used to be the merriest lassie on the Borgie water, with the lightest foot in a reel, and the blithest laugh of any, was now become dowie, easily wearied, and fond of being alone. Some said that the cast of an evil eye had been on her, or that she had gotten a glint of Jenny some night that she had been on the walk; nothing less, they thought, could have made such a change on the bonnie cantie young lassie.

It was a sore distress to her father and mother, though they werena such fools as to believe that her looks could have been altered by any such causes, or that it was their duty to sew a slip of rowan-tree round her neck to preserve her from the influence of evil spirits. They thought she needed a change, and so they proposed that she should go for a week or two to a cousin of her mother's-my cousin twice removed, he was, Mr. Matthew-who lived at a place about twelve miles off, where the air was very fresh and caller. To please them she went; but she came back at the end of the time as pale and thoughtful like as ever, The parish couldna under.

stand the meaning o't-so they just put the wyte o't upon Jenny. Everybody agreed that the Haughead had never been a chancy bit since Jenny's death; and as time went on there came to be far fewer visitors there at e'en than there used to be. Bell's sweethearts dropped off one by one as they found she would give them no encouragement; even Jamie Gourlay, who hung on longest, thinking things might take another turn, was at last compelled to follow the others. And yet Bell didna scem to mind; the lassie was strangely altered.

Three years had gone by since Allan had left the country, and for the last six months of them no word had come from him. The letters might have miscarried that was the only hope. The poor old man his father was in deep tribulation; but nobody dreamt of pitying Bell, whose very heart was sick and faint, no kenning whether Allan was alive or dead. She was nearly distracted with the uncertainty, and with the false courage of desperation would have dared anything almost to have her doubts settled either one way or another.

HOME MUSIC: AS IT IS, AND AS IT MIGHT BE.

THE

'HE dictionary defines music as "the science of combining sounds in an agreeable manner,vocal or instrumental harmony; " in private life, however, the word has a far more limited application. When Jones's daughter tells us that she learns music, we are not to understand that she is taking lessons on the harp, or in singing, or in harmony and counterpoint, but that she is devoting her attention to the study of the pianoforte, which has contrived. of late years entirely to monopolise the term. In fact, to most Englishmen the word music simply calls up a vision of a grand or a cottage, with a morning governess, a tuner, a music-stool, and finishing lessons at two guineas a quarter; while at the very mention of the word their ears are filled with scales in C major, and arrangements of "The Last Rose of Summer," mingled in wild confusion with five-finger exercises, and the daily studies of Czerny and Bertini.

Notwithstanding that every English girl undergoes a more or less extensive, and expensive, training on the pianoforte, it can hardly be said that English domestic music is improving, or even that it is so good as it was before the omnipresent instrument was invented; on the contrary, it may be fairly argued that the pianoforte has really been the indirect cause of the decline and fall of music as a welcome home recreation. We appeal to our readers: Where the pianoforte exists, is there not much more practising (this word has also acquired a sense of its own) than playing? When a piece (also in the technical sense) is ready for performance in the family circle, does it not always fall flat and stale on the ears of those whose fate it has been to hear the weeks of thumping that have preceded its final consummation?

The question will arise, What has brought the piano into such prominence in English domestic life? The reason is this: in the first place it forms a most convenient accompaniment for solo songs, one of the positions it fills to the best advantage; in the next place, a whole tune, by which we mean an air com

a

pletely harmonised, may be produced by one person on one instrument; while, thirdly and chiefly, nearly every one, persons possessed of little, or even absolutely devoid of any musical taste, may by dint of practice play a tune passably, provided that it requires no more expression than can be produced by à judicious use of the right-hand pedal. Besides, owing to the facility of the execution in certain combinations-for instance, common chords arpeggioed in rapid notes-an air may be arranged so as to be at once brilliant, or what is so-called, and yet tolerably easy. Accordingly a demand, and, we are sorry to add, an unfailing supply of these jingling, expressionless pieces is created, and thus it is that washy opera airs, set in ornamental filigrees of demisemiquavers, common waltz tunes in the form of Morceaux Brillants pour Salon, and tortured versions of the "Bluebells of Scotland," disguised as Grandes fantaisies sur un thème Ecossais, are poured forth on the unresisting world for the sake of girls who, possessed of the digital dexterity requisite for their performance and nothing more, believe that in playing them they are making music, and entertaining their fellowcreatures.

When a girl has received her early training in a school like this, she finds it almost impossible to adopt a more rational style. Not only is the taste vitiated, but the left hand, which has been comparatively untrained, will either be physically unable to execute the bass part in the sonatas of Beethoven, or will drop from the keyboard tired out before the middle of the first movement. The effect so easily procured by merely mechanical means in the pieces of the day, cannot be obtained in the works of the great masters without a sympathetic mind and a cultivated taste; in short, the soul must play as well as the fingers. How absolutely painful it is to hear a player nourished on the ordinary boarding-school pieces, attempt an adagio of Beethoven, notably that which commences his "Moonlight Sonata" (No. 14). She will carefully give each triplet its exact metronome time, play steadily, calmly, and cold-bloodedly (if the term may be used) through to the end, with no passion, with no expression; and then wonder, as well she may, whatever people can find to admire in classical music. The consequence is that fathers, brothers, and other relations, except perhaps the admiring mamma, who has resolved that all her daughters, whether musically inclined or not, shall be possessed of the accomplishment, wearied by the horrible sameness attending every performance, never ask for a tune, and stealthily retire from the room if they perceive the signs of an impending encounter with the much-enduring instrument.

With the piano the accompanied ballad has grown up, and here, too, a supply of the most inferior trash is produced, usurping the place of the old glees, catches, canons, and rounds, which, not long ago, might be heard in every house in the country. The part-song still finds its votaries among the choral societies, but at home the alto, tenor, and bass would feel that they were being eclipsed by the soprano, were they to take the trouble to get up a part in "Crabbed Age and Youth," or "Down in a Flowery Dale." Alto, tenor, and bass ballads may be had, and the poorer the singer, the readier to show off in a solo. Thus we find the tenor revelling in the mawkish sentiment of "Kiss me, mother, ere I leave thee, Never more to meet again," or an almost voiceless bass attempting the jubilant strains of "Oh,