print in the basin startled the quiet of the place. The few eyes in it were turned upon her, and in a minute Leslie was at her side.

"Oh, Teddy," she said, giving him her hand. She spoke as if she had forgotten about him and his yacht; and she had forgotten.

the basin, and stood at the head of the pier, regarding the yacht which lay at the end of it.

"Isn't she a beauty?" Leslie said. "She's a trim little thing. A little heavily sparred, maybe — eh ? — but I like her lines."

Julia put her head on one side, and
H'm,

"Here on a Saturday, Julia! What's with a connoisseur's toss of it, wrong at Tarpow?"

She touched her basket: "Famine."

Leslie was in a chronic excitement at the thought of Julia-a glorious girl like this, whom to see, he had to sail his yacht across the Forth. He was very much in love with the yacht, and he was very much in love with himself. Julia-the mere fact of Julia-ministered to both feelings. Besides, he was very young.

66

yes," she said; and she mocked his voice and words and critical air to a nicety.

For the first time he thought of more than himself and her comeliness, and was amazed at her cleverness. Poor young cub! She was only new to him. She wasn't clever. His own sisters, at the moment golfing on the other side of the Forth, had nimbler wits than she, by far.

"Bravo!" he cried. "Now she de

"Was it famine in the land, or serves her name !" drought?" he asked.

with

"What d'ye call her ?"
"The Julia."
"Julia?"

"Yes, Julia. Bob Pratt's painting it on her now.'

There was a glowing anger in her. She was as little sensible as any country girl ought to be of the talk of the neighbors; but here - They had evidently gossiped to Leslie of her "Then Bob Pratt'll just paint it out father's frailty, as they might of the again," she said, leading the way down barrenness of Tarpow's land. Her the pier with a decision which Bob's father fought the barrenness grin, as he looked up at her from his failing spirit, it is true; but he fought paint-pot, approved. The grin proit. He made no effort against the jected the popular opinion on the subother. The burden of that lay on ject. Julia's shoulders. Yet she had fought it, as she would have fought nettles in the field corners, or dandelions in the bleaching green, - steadily and impersonally. For the first time, now that Leslie took to hinting at the work, she was ashamed of the need of it.

"I was coming up this afternoon," Leslie went on, without awaiting an answer, and her anger fled. There was something in his boyish ways, his voice, and his looks, that responded to the new emotion of the morning.

"Why! My father's at market." There was not a touch of coquetry in her manner of saying this, for she laughed, as much as to confess, "As if it were he you were coming to see." And he said, "I know he's away; and they laughed together.

Leslie, following her in chagrin, could only say:

"You must christen her, then.” She had no nimbleness of wits to suggest a name on the instant, but she had nimbleness of manner. There was an old gin-bottle lying on the pierhead, and she stooped to it. Leslie picked it up for her, and, as they rose together, she saw something in his face that changed her intention.

"Oh! very well," she cried, and smashed the bottle on the yacht's bows: "I christen her the Julia."

It was the war of sense and sensibility. Her good sense was derived from the conditions of her life. Today, now that she was bursting into "womanhood, the conditions of her life bred sensibility.

By this time they had walked round

But she would not stay longer. In

no case should she have allowed him | held to her side, lit up Julia herself in to accompany her; she did not care the middle of the rough-and-tumble that he should see what was her errand crowd of poultry she was feeding. to Mrs. Pratt's. To-day, -to-day all Julia among her poultry discovered a things were altered, their relationship | country girl with her rusticity rounded among the rest. That which she saw with a considerable elegance and knowlin Leslie's face may have been the edge, derived from her father in early image of her own feeling. For her, at days. It was her father's humor, not any rate, it changed everything be- hers, that had named a flighty old hen tween them; and, had she known it," Atalanta,” and a combative cock with the reserve and withdrawal it led her to were the most potent steps she could have taken to affect him.

a very dissonant crow "Anacreon." But the fight with his land had so demoralized him now, that she had as little discernment of his better nature as of his ill condition.

She made her purchase, and soon was out upon the Tarpow road again. The heat was more suffused, the sun- Julia cleaned her fingers, all sticky shine a shade more golden. The wind with the hens' meat, on the side of the from the sea crept up behind her, near basin, and washed them in the overthe ground. The road was empty. flow of the horse-trough. Next she Yonder, on either side of it, Tarpow visited the calves' house, and went to and Broomielaws lay slumbering under the straw-loft to gather the eggs which their red-tiled nightcaps. There was the clucking hens announced. She a lull in her dissatisfaction - an inter- |clambered up the straw massed in the lude of re-action, in which Tarpow and back of the barn, and stood among the even Broomielaws wore a homely air. rafters. From there she looked down This grew upon her as she entered the to some loose straw heaped on the floor house. Everything was as when she in a soft bed. The memory of earlier left. The doors stood open, the cattle days swam to her head. browsed under the trees, the wind rustled delicately about the porch, and bore in upon her the fragrances of the earth. And to these things, which in the morning had hemmed her in with the tight grip of their familiarity, she turned now with a sense of restful

ness.

Her awakened womanliness, from which she was seeking escape, had touched into life in Leslie a new sensation. Bob Pratt dug about its roots and watered it with his gossip of the life old Tarpow led his daughter, and the marriage he sought for her. The new chivalry, love, call it what you will, sprouted like a mushroom, and Leslie was half-way to Tarpow before he could word his purpose.

From the end of the Tarpow road he caught a glimpse of Julia in the yard. The wind wound her print daintily about her lissom figure. She wore no hat above the straight hair wisped into a broad, flat coil. The sunlight swirling within the dish-red without, yellow within which her arched arm

Man's life's a vapor, full of woes; He cuts a caper, and off he goes, she chanted, and clapped her hands, and jumped down to the soft bed, startling the sitting hens, which clucked and beat their wings among the rafters. She climbed and flopped, and climbed and flopped again, until at length she sank, hot and breathless and laughing at the foot of the heap. And there Leslie found her.

Her thoughts when he darkened the doorway were not of the wonder of his being there. She forgot that in her concern to account for her flustered condition. Then she did what the old Julia might have been expected to do at once. She told him how delightful it was to flop from the height of the straw, and showed him how it was done, and bade him follow her. And so, for a few minutes again, the barn was full of the sound of scared poultry, and of the rhymes jerked from these two breathless children, and of their smothered ejaculations.

It was the old story; love is an in

Then the whole thing was spoiled. | come Broomielaws-red, vast, middleAt any rate, that is how the old Julia aged, brutal. She had never thought would have thought of it; she could of him so before, and she shut her never again be the old Julia. For over eyes, and her mind's eye, on the horrid him, like the cloud-shadows scudding sight, and opened them upon the future over the fields outside, swept the Teddy painted. She would await their thought that this was not what he had return, and Broomielaws' departure. come there for; and the thought swept By cleven o'clock the house would be on and shadowed her. His words out- quiet; then she would steal down to in his purpose. When he talked of the jetty at the caves. She would be ve she did not recognize it, so little there, if she were coming at all, half an had she thought of it or dreamed of it. | hour after midnight. All she knew was, that it was exactly what she had been waiting for-so stinct as well as a passion; and it was satisfying to her there in his arms, the instinct of love only that was workwith his kisses on her hot face. Why ing in these two. Leslie became wiser should she remain at Tarpow? Why, with every step he took from Tarpow. indeed? Tarpow was a prison; its He was not a very far-seeing hobbleways, its very scenes, gripped at her dehoy; but there are some things come heart now. And Broomielaws; her up very close to the eyes, and an elopefather would marry her to him to it ment with Julia was one of them. rather. Oh, Teddy knew it all. All Torrie Town knew it, and perhaps St. Brise as well, - knew it from Tarpow's own lips, it seemed. At that thought she became conscious of herself, of her physical self, inch by inch, the body which she robed and could touch, as well as of this intangible thing within her that was quick to-day for the first time. This all this was to be sold by her father. He talked of the sale. Was he worth her care more? Was he worth the sacrifice of life? of love? For she saw them both now, or thought she saw them, — love and sacrifice.

It was Teddie's plan. The yacht lay at Torrie pier. They dared not sail from there; but he could moor the yacht in the bay to the eastwards, at the caves, and row Julia out to her from the jetty; and she should go with him, for always. He had no one in the world save her. There were his sisters, to be sure; but they would welcome her in the old house, on the other side of the Firth, where she might look over to the smoke of Torrie Town, but never again beat her wings against the bars, as at Tarpow. Julia might have known—at any other time would have known-how idle it all was. But to-day her whole being swam to the vision. She would await her father's return. With him would

"Here's a devil of a mess!" he was saying to himself at the main road turn; and by the time he got to Torrie pier the affair had become one of many devils. He had no thoughts of drawing back, however, but got on board, and stood up for the bay at the caves very bravely, and lay there, tossed about between his admiration for Julia and wrath for himself.

With Julia it was different. Her mood, such as it was, had come with a draught of spring which every atom of her body absorbed till it became newly constituted. The appetite of the woman, newly unchained by consciousness now, would have upleapt had not pressing duties kept it under. Julia had many things to attend to. Leslie's leave-taking had been hastened by the return of the ploughmen, which was irregular in this off-season of the year. The bothy-boys were hungry, and she had to make porridge to appease them, and the cows had to be milked. The return of her father with Broomielaws found her finishing her work calmly enough; but when she lifted her busy hand from off her agitation, it fluttered within her.

Tarpow took the beatings of it for the fulfilment of his instructions. The maid, he thought, had put off her perky ways, and was clothed in assent. He

was seated as straight as an old man | house, she would have sent him to bed could be, close up to the table, brewing immediately, but he set himself on his toddy for himself and for Broomielaws, chair again.

"Sit down, Julia. Sit down, girl," he said.

The formality, and what he would have called the "Anglified" turn of his speech, registered the degrees of his insobriety

"Julia," he said, "you're like your mother to-night."

who lolled in the armchair with his long legs bent stiffly in front of him like a locust's, or a spinning-jenny's, thought Julia, as she set a bit of supper. Tarpow watched her out of the corner of his eyes. She had a large graciousness always that was something akin to grace; but to-night her bountifulness had a sparkle in it. Her A pompous exposition of the affair womanliness was in the bud. Tarpow of Broomielaws and herself was exactly had angled for Broomielaws artfully the thing for a drunken man to take up and persistently with the artificial lure and enjoy. Besides, domestic sentiof Julia's domestic virtues, and had ment is suited to one stage of intoxicafound him a lumpish biter at best. tion. When he said, "You're like That night Julia was a natural bait at your mother, Julia," this whiskey senwhich he came with a rush. That he timent was in his eyes and voice; and was a very ill-conditioned, unseason- Julia's condition made her peculiarly able fish mattered little to Tarpow, sensitive to any sentiment, even of the chuckling over the sport. The quarry limelights. was not a son-in-law, but a son-in-law's land; and Julia assenting was not a daughter angling for a husband, but a daughter in conspiracy with himself for five hundred acres.

"Father," she said, crossing to him and sitting on the floor at his feet, "do you really think I'm in love with Broomielaws ?"

"You are well off having Broomielaws in love with you," he caught her up, with a laugh. "What is love?"

How easy it would be to answer that question! thought Julia.

Tarpow's sly grimaces and Broomielaws' ardor defeated their ends by spurring Julia in her resolve. On the other hand, her resolve was like to defeat itself, for its verve drew on Broomielaws until the man was breathless in his pursuit. When at length he rose to go, and her father went to the door with him, both unsteady in their gait, she accompanied them. To both men the act seemed unusually gracious; they were not to know that it was to see how the night fared that she went. Broomielaws' way lay across the fields, Tarpow's and his own, and her father walked with him to the edge of the yard. From there they watched the girl in the doorway who was looking out upon the night. The spring air still lingered; but, above, the wind was high, and the moon drove inevitable! Mari'ge made in heaven.' across the sky through clouds. She My inevitable son-in-law Broomie

"I've buffeted the warl' this six-andsixty years," he went on, "and I'll tell you what love is. What's everything? Just a yoke we yoke oursel's wi'. We saddle oursel's wi' duty. We put the bit o' morality 'tween our own teeth. Love? — just a pair o' blinkers, Jooley. Ah! we can keek round the corner, fine. We gang straight in front o's aince we've set our een in the proper airt-and mak'-believe we see nothing else. You've got your een set on Broomielaws-I saw it the nicht, sensible lass the nicht, Jooley, -like your mother. Noo, jist put on the blinkers, and say, 'Broomielaws the

felt Broomielaws' eyes upon her. She laws!"
burned a kiss upon her palm, and flung
it towards the caves. She could not
know that she should have flung the
kiss to herself.

-

Her mood was such that her father's speech amused as much as it pained. She said, half to herself, "I have got the blinkers on," and turned her eyes When her father re-entered the straight to the corner of the house that

faced the bay at the caves.
in the direction of Broomielaws also,
and the old man grinned.

She

That was hideous when he was in drink. had started running again, when a something in the heap caused her to "There's more nor a man there, return and look a little closer. The Jooley. There's fields, fat fields, but collar cutting the neck and cheeks was they maun be husbanded. I'll hus-redder than the cheeks and neck themband them. And you, Jooley, you'll selves. Accustomed as she was to husband love-it maun be husbanded accidents and wounds, she saw in an too. Paul may plant, and Apollos instant that he had fallen into the water, but if ye dinna manure. Broom- danger she had missed, and had struck ielaws! Mrs. Broomielaws! Young his head upon the coulter; and at the Broomielawses ! —all inside the blink- same moment she had found the wound and was assuaging it.

ers."

He hiccoughed, and wept, and staggered to his feet; and the coming of her opportunity drove out the anger that was in her.

To her skilled eye the seriousness of Broomielaws' condition gaped like his wound, and all her purpose of that night ran out of her. But it left in her a solicitude for the man in her arms, which would have been impossible had she not harbored the false sentiment that she threw off as soon as an appeal to her practical self set it in its true light. At the same time, it did not cause her to forget the stark facts of her condition. She could not leave him thus to search for help; yet, whether she brought help or attracted it, how could she account for her presence there at that time of night? That made action easier, for the only alternative was to return to Tarpow, — she never gave going on to the caves a thought now, and keep silence concerning Broomielaws. If that course crossed her mind, it did not linger. Keeping her handkerchief tight to the wound, she ransacked the man's pockets until she found matches. The hidden moon favored her plan, and the lights, as she struck them, flared brightly against the darkness. It was a random shot to aid her shouts for help. On market night some wandering ploughmen might be hieing home from Torrie Town across the fields. Twice as the moon glinted through the rack, she thought she saw a figure between her and the coast, the second time nearer her and close to the hedgerow that ran from her side.

The clocks were on the stroke of midnight ere Julia was clear of the house. She had said that she would be at the caves by half past twelve at the latest; that gave her half an hour only to cover the ground, and she took to the fields. She gave herself no time to consider that Leslie would wait on her, that he would be on the way to meet her. Leslie himself was less in her mind than the fact that she had au arrangement to meet him, to be taken away from Tarpow. Her way was Broomielaws' short cut home, across Tarpow's fields and his own; only, a park's breadth from Broomielaws she must make a point or two to the south, and descend upon the caves. The moon was behind a cloud, and her only guide beyond her instinct for the way was the light of the May. The going was rough; but she labored on, until a sharp jerk in a ditch-drain at the edge of her own land brought her up against a paling to draw a clear breath. As she leaned on it for a moment, the moon shook itself free of the clouds. Everything was still, except that the hum of the sea was louder here than westwards at Tarpow. A plough lay at the corner of her field, almost at her feet, and on the instant of wondering how she should have escaped tripping on it, her eye caught a heap beside it. By and by a singularly sweet piping It was not to be mistaken; and the smote her ear. It came delicately humorous thought, that took the edge through the night in the strains of a off her disgust was that Broomielaws' Jacobite air, becoming louder and tightly breeched legs were specially louder, until a rustling down the hedge