in the stillness of evening, this heart-rending and bitter cry— “Oh, my Annie, my dear, dear Annie!" We now descended speedily, and found William seated on the grassy bank beside a large, deep pool, with his Annie in his arms; but her pure and gentle spirit had passed away-she was dead! We tried to force, to tear her from him, but he firmly maintained his grasp, until, comprehending our meaning, he rose and crept slowly with his precious burden up the steep banks, till, having reached the pathway above, we slowly proceeded on our way, the sighing of the branches overhead blending wildly with the oft-repeated cry-"Oh, my Annie! I have lost my Annie!"

Arrived at the cottage, amidst the sobs, and sighs, and tears of all, was the lifeless body laid gently on the bed. Clean white linen soon replaced the dripping clothes, and a mother's gentle hand having closed the still open, lustrous eyes, and parted the bright auburn hair on the cold, cold brow, we all assembled round the bed to take our last look of Annie Glen. There she lay, like a young and beautiful bride asleep upon her nuptial couch, with a sweet smile on her lips, her thin, white hands lying gently across her bosom, her cheeks radiant with healthful bloom, and her long, golden ringlets flowing luxuriantly over her shoulders. Oh, thought I, can this be death? That lovely being, who only a few short hours ago I saw in all the flush of health and beauty, is she in reality dead, and am I even now in the very presence chamber of the King of Terrors? A low, tremulous, sepulchral cry-"Oh, my Annie! I have lost my Annie!" interrupted my reverie, and recalled me to the scene before me. William, haggard and ghastly, stood at one end of the bed, the Squire, pale and trembling, stood at the other, while father, mother, and friends, all intently gazing on the dead, filled up the group between. The miller, trembling with emotion, now opened the large "ha' Bible," which he had brought from another room, and closed the never-to-beforgotten scene by solemnly reading-" Behold I show you a

mystery we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But, thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

If I could divine your thoughts, dear reader, I would imagine you now to be weighing carefully the probabilities and improbabilities of the story of the "Miller's Daughter." If true, you think, not without reason, that a strange and strong suspicion must ever rest on the singular and mysterious conduct of Annie Glen. Her apparent calmness in the interview with her lover; her repeated expostulations as to the propriety of his leaving her to pursue her way home alone; and her sudden discovery in the arbour in company with the Laird of Kincaldrum, all tend to the grave suspicion that she was playing false with her affianced lover. Well, I am rather glad than otherwise that your mind still continues overshadowed with these doubts, as it will give me an opportunity of dispelling ungenerous thoughts and unjust suspicions, dishonourable alike to the living and the dead.

On the evening in question, Mr Grahame was taking his accustomed walk along the banks of the burn. Enticed by the extreme beauty of the night, and beguiled, as he has since confessed, by busy and ever-anxious thoughts regarding the miller's daughter, he had wandered much farther in the wood than was his wont, when, at an abrupt turn of the narrow path, who, to his utter surprise and astonishment, should he meet but Annie Glen! A strange, indescribable embarrassment overpoweringly and suddenly seized both at the same moment;

and while the one essayed to speak, the other trembled like an aspen, crimsoned and turned pale by turns.

"Good evening, Miss Annie," at last said the Laird. “I did not expect the pleasure of seeing you here. Have you come from a distance? You seem fatigued with walking."

To these questions, so pointed and yet so natural, Annie could not reply without in some measure entangling herself in a labyrinth of explanations which she could not doubt were not really desired, and which she certainly had no inclination to make. Still, this hesitation increased her embarrassment, which Mr Grahame very naturally construed into a feeling the very opposite of what it really was. Overcome by her own feelings and his soft, tender words, and entirely forgetting, or rather not once thinking of, the consequences, she sank down on the rustic seat in the alcove. Mr Grahame immediately seated himself beside her, apparently in rapt admiration at the fascinating and bewitching charms of to him the fairest creature in God's creation. Allowing her a few minutes to compose herself during which time her large, blue, dreamy eyes would sometimes meet and dwell on his with a strange expression of pleasure and grief-he thus addressed the trembling maiden

"Dear Annie Glen, I have ever loved you dearly. My heart has long been yours. Oh, give me, dearest Annie, yours in return! The happiness of my future life depends on your consent. Shall I, dearest, call you mine?"

He grasped her yielding hand, and pressed it to his lips. Strange! this pressure of the hand had a more powerful effect on her heart than all the sweet and honied words to which he had so tenderly given utterance. Its vibrations with electric force thrilled luxuriously through her very soul, and cast for a time over every sense and feeling a strange, mysterious, yet delightful spell. Such homage, such an avowal of heart-felt love, from one high in birth and station to one so infinitely his inferior, might have turned a stronger head than that of Annie Glen. But it was only a momentary feeling; a woman's courage and presence of mind came to her relief at last.

"Mr Grahame," she said, softly and sweetly, "I feel grateful-very grateful-for your kind wishes; but my heart is not mine, it is another's. It is only an hour since I vowed to be Willie Osler's for ever, and I will keep my vow, for I have loved Willie and Willie has loved me since we were bairns; and my heart and love I have willingly and unalterably given to him. But you, Mr Grahame, will get some great lady that you will like better, I trust, and who will be a fitter wife to you than would have been poor Annie Glen.”

This reply, so unexpected, and yet so artlessly firm, quite confounded the Laird of Kincaldrum who, soon recovering himself, however, was just expressing his admiration of the noble sentiments she had uttered; and, forgetting his own disappointment and sorrow, he was assuring her of his continued interest in her welfare, and of his heartfelt wishes for her happiness, when William rushed, like one demented, into the alcove, startling both as if by some wild and ghostly apparation.

Now you seem satisfied, and Annie Glen is restored to your confidence in all her guileless innocence and beauty. The character of the Laird must also, if possible, rise higher in your estimation, for you observe he makes no allusion to her attractive charms or bewitching beauty, praising neither the bright vermilion of her cheek, the dreamy lustre of her eye, nor the flowing and beautiful luxuriance of her golden tresses; nor speaks of his rank and high station, his houses nor his lands, but simply makes a declaration of his love, in words so pure and simple that we cannot doubt but that they flowed from a sincere and loving heart.

But the immediate cause of her sudden disappearance ? That, I grant, is enveloped in mystery, for Mr Grahame has never disclosed any particulars of this part of the tragedy which has in any way served to throw the least light upon it. The scuffle did not last many minutes, and the violence was all on the side of William, the Laird merely keeping him at bay. Whether she was pushed over the precipice, either acci

dentally or intentionally, or lost her footing on the narrow pathway in the excitement of the moment, must now and for ever be unsatisfying matter of conjecture.

Mr Grahame, for some considerable time after this melancholy and mysterious occurrence, shut himself up in his house and was seen by no one save an old domestic who attended him. It was imagined his mind had become affected, and all sincerely mourned the sad fate of the good laird of Kincaldrum. But a purifying and sanctifying process was going on in his mind under divine and spiritual influence. Despair, like an evil spirit, at first prostrated him to the dust, and no ray of hope for a time penetrated his soul in the darkness by which he was enveloped. But his mind gradually became more composed, and its faculties, instead of spending their strength in ceaseless ravings against the hardness of his fate, and the hopeless nature of his malady, began to exert their influence in first calming, then comforting his troubled spirit, till a sweet and heavenly joy filled his soul, and a holy and blessed influence from on high overshadowed and controlled his thoughts.

Feeling the weight of sorrow removed from his heart, he now came forth to view again the beauty and glory of this fair world; and although he had often before felt his soul elevated and refreshed by the chaste loveliness of the bursting spring, yet never till now did his own heart seem so bright a reflex and emblem of that instructive and expressive season, which now awakening as from the dead, luxuriated in new life and vigour, arrayed in the bright hues of youth, and scattering beauty and hope, and gladness all around. Nature to him became more lovely than ever, everything in this fair and beautiful earth becoming signs and emblems of spiritual life; and he roamed over hill and dale, rejoicing in his new existence, his heart ever rising to his Heavenly Father in holy and adoring aspirations of love and gratitude.

From all this he saw and learned his duty to man. God never intended that man should live the life of an anchorite. Every