THE LOST CHILD.

Lucy was only six years old, but bold as a fairy; she had gone by herself a thousand times about the braes,* and often upon errands to houses two or three miles distant. What had her parents to fear? The footpaths were all firm, and led through no places of danger; nor are infants of themselves incautious, when alone in their pastimes. Lucy went singing into the coppice-woods, and singing she reappeared on the open hill-side. With her small white hand on the rail, she glided along the wooden bridge, or, lightly as the ousel,† tripped from stone to stone across the shallow streamlet. The creature would be away for hours, and no fears be felt on her account by any one at home-whether she had gone with her basket under her arm to borrow some articles of household use from a neighbor, or, merely for her own solitary delight, wandered off to the braes to play among the flowers, coming back laden with wreaths and garlands. With a bonnet of her own sewing, to shade her pretty face from the sun, and across her shoulders a plaid in which she could sit dry during an hour of the heaviest rain beneath the smallest beild, Lucy passed many long hours in the daylight, and thus knew, without thinking of it, all the topography of that pastoral solitude, and even something of the changeful appearances in the air and sky.

The happy child had been invited to pass a whole day, from morning to night, at Ladyside (a farm-house about two miles off), with her playmates, the Maynes; and she left home about an hour after sunrise. She was dressed for a holiday, and father and mother, and aunt Isobel, all three kissed her sparkling face before she set off by her

*

Rising grounds. + Blackbird.

+ Shelter.

self, and stood listening to her singing, till her small voice was lost in the murmur of the rivulet. During her absence, the house was silent but happy; and, the evening being now far advanced, Lucy was expected home every minute, and Michael, Agnes, and Isobel, went to meet her on the way. They walked on and on, wondering a little, but in no degree alarmed, till they reached Ladyside, and heard the cheerful din of the imps within, still rioting at the close of the holiday. Jacob Mayne came to the door; but, on their kindly asking why Lucy had not been sent home before daylight was over, he looked painfully surprised, and said that she had not been at Ladyside.

Agnes suddenly sat down, without speaking one word, on the stone seat beside the door, and Michael, supporting her, said, "Jacob, our child left us this morning at six o'clock, and it is now near ten at night. God is merciful, but, perhaps, Lucy is dead." Jacob Mayne was an ordinary, common-place, and rather ignorant man; but his heart leaped within him at these words, and, by this time, his own children were standing about the door. "Yes, Mr. Forrester, God is merciful; and your daughter, let us trust, is not dead. Let us trust that she yet liveth; and, without delay, let us go to seek the child." Michael trembled from head to foot, and his voice was gone: he lifted up his eyes to heaven, but it seemed not as if he saw either the moon or the stars. "Run over to Raeshorn, some of you," said Jacob, "and tell what has happened. Do you, Isaac, my good boy, cross over to a' the towns on the Inverlethen-side, and-Oh! Mr. Forrester-Mr. Forrester, dinna let this trial overcome you sae sairly ”—for Michael was leaning against the wall of the house, and the strong man was helpless as a child. "Keep up your heart, my dearest son," said Isobel, with a voice all unlike her usual, "keep up your heart, for the blessed bairn is, beyond doubt, somewhere in the keeping of the great God, yea, without a hair of her head being hurt. A

child had left it in the morning before, neatly made up with her own hands, and her small red Bible was lying on her pillow.

"Oh! my husband, this is being indeed kind to your Agnes, for much it must have cost you to stay here; but had you left me, my silly heart must have ceased to beat altogether, for it will not lie still even now that I am well nigh resigned to the will of God." Michael put his hand. on his wife's bosom, and felt her heart beating as if it were a knell. Then, ever and anon, the tears came gushing ; for all her strength was gone, and she lay at the mercy of the rustle of a leaf, or a shadow across the window; and thus hour after hour passed on till it was again twilight.

"I hear footsteps coming up the brae," said Agnes, who had for some time appeared to be slumbering; and, in a few moments, the voice of Jacob Mayne was heard at the outer door. It was no time for ceremony, and he advanced into the room where the family had been during all that trying and endless day. Jacob wore a solemn expression of countenance; and he seemed, from his looks, to bring them no comfort. Michael stood up between him and his wife, and looked into his heart. Something there seemed to be in his face that was not miserable. "If he has heard nothing of my child," thought Michael, “this man must care but little for his own fireside." "Oh, speak, speak," said Agnes; "yet why need you speak? All this has been but a vain belief, and Lucy is in heaven." Something like a trace of her has been discovered—a woman, with a child, that did not look like a child of hers, was last night at Clovenford, and left it by the daw'ing.' "Do you hear that, my beloved Agnes?" said Isobel; "she'll have tramped away with Lucy up into Ettrick or Yarrow; but hundreds of eyes will have been upon her; for these are quiet, but not solitary glens; and the hunt will be over long before she has crossed down upon Hawick. I knew that country in my young days. What say ye, Mr. Mayne?

There's the light o' hope on your

face."

"There's nae reason to doubt, ma'am, that it was Lucy. Every body is sure o't. If it was my ain Rachel, I should ha'e nae fear o' seeing her this blessed night."

Jacob Mayne now took a chair, and sat down, with even a smile upon his countenance. "I may tell you, noo, that Watty Oliver kens it was your bairn; for he saw her limping after the limmer* at Galla-Brigg; but ha'eing nae suspicion, he did na tak' a second leukt o' her-but ae leuk is sufficient, and he swears it was bonny Lucy Forrester." Aunt Isobel, by this time, had bread and cheese, and a bottle of her own elder-flower wine, on the table. “You have had a long and hard journey, wherever you have been, Mr. Mayne-tak' some refreshment,"-and Michael asked a blessing. Jacob saw that he might now venture to reveal the whole truth. "No-no-Mrs. Irvine, I'm ower happy to eat or to drink. You are a' prepared for the blessing that awaits you-your bairn is no far aff—and I mysel'—for it was I mysel' that faund her-will bring her by the han', and restore her to her parents." Agnes had raised herself up in her bed at these words; but she sunk gently back on her pillow; aunt Isobel was rooted to her chair; and Michael, as he rose up, felt as if the ground were sinking under his feet.

There was a dead silence all around the house for a short space, and then the sound of many joyful voices, which again, by degrees, subsided. The eyes of all then looked, and yet feared to look, towards the door. Jacob Mayne was not so good as his word; for he did not bring Lucy by the hand to restore her to her parents; but, dressed again in her own bonnet, and her gown, and her own plaid, in rushed their child, by herself, with tears and sobs of joy, and her father laid her within her mother's bosom.

* A vile woman.

JOHN WILSON.

† A look.

THE LYING SERVANT.

THERE lived in Suabia a certain lord, pious, just, and wise; to whose lot it fell to have a serving-man, a great rogue, and, above all, much addicted to the vice of lying. The name of the lord is not in the story; therefore the reader need not trouble himself about it.

The knave was given to boast of his wondrous travels. He had visited countries which are no where to be found in the map, and seen things which mortal eyes never beheld. He would lie through the twenty-four hours of the clock; for he dreamed falsehoods in his sleep, to the truth of which he swore when he was awake. His lord was a cunning as well as a virtuous man, and used to see the lies in the varlet's mouth; so that he was often caught—hung, as it were, in his own untruths, as in a trap. Nevertheless, he persisted still the more in his lies; said, "How can that be?" he would answer, with fierce oaths and protestations, that so it was. He swore, stone and bone, and might the devil have his soul, and so forth! Yet was the knave useful in the household; quick and handy therefore he was not disliked of his lord, though verily he was a great liar.

and when any one

It chanced, one pleasant day in spring, after the rains had fallen heavily, and swollen much the floods, that the lord and the knave rode out together; and their way passed through a shady and silent forest. Suddenly appeared an old and well-grown fox:-"Look!" exclaimed the master of the knave; "look! what a huge beast! never before have I seen a renard so large!" "Doth this beast surprise thee by its hugeness?" replieth straight the serving groom, casting his eye slightingly on the animal, as he fled for fear, away into the cover of the brakes: "by stone and bone, I have been in a kingdom where the