"Alas! Mary Hepburn is no more and something seems to haunt me, and to whisper into my ear-villain! And am I the cause of the maiden's death? Still my soul shrinks from the question. I have a sister; she, too, is passing lovely. Were a prince even to insult that sister as I did the maid of Gowanfield, I would think it a less crime than I am guilty of to stab him to the heart. She who now lies in the grave has no brother fit to avenge the wrongs which his sister has suffered; but that sister has the angel of virtue and heaven itself to frown on me! Was Mary Hepburn the cottage maiden equal with Anne Heartwell of the Hall? Say, was she not as good, as virtuous, and in every way as accomplished? And then the mild but noble beauty of her aspect! Which of Scotland's high born dames could surpass, nay, which of them all can equal the loveliness of her countenance? Had that Mary yet lived, she might have been-what? was she not a peasant's daughter? This is the poor objection of that moral and political evil-aristocratic pride.

"My soul can yet return to nature and truth. Had the most lovely, the most injured, Mary Hepburn yet lived, she should have been-but, alas! how vain now to say that! O, fatal fatuity! we are blind to our errors till it is beyond our power to remedy the evil that has been perpetrated under their sway! and hence we miss our own, and very often destroy the happiness of others.

"It is not now in my power to atone to William Hepburn and his sorrowing family for the insult which I rashly offered to his lovely daughter; still something may be done, and that something shall be of the most generous and honourable kind. I have a fortune at my command, but I will not boast of it now; for what is fortune when that is lost which would have made fortune a blessing? What indeed could recompense William Hepburn for the loss of his lovely, his peerless Mary? Yet, with this fortune, shall I not endeavour at least to make a worthy family happy? I have at last learnt the true value of riches."

The noble resolutions of a noble mind returned to virtue, and their consequent good, must be highly pleasing both to God and man.

Mr. Heartwell solicited an interview with the peasant, William Hepburn. William could have discoursed to an emperor with as much freedom and collectedness as he could have spoken to Jamie Henbane at his own cottage door.

Mr. Heartwell had now been informed of the worth of our peasant philosopher's character; his motive, therefore, for an interview was decidedly of a generous and disinterested kind.

William was much pleased with the moral solicitude of Heartwell. He neither hated nor feared his aristocratic neighbour. He consented to a meeting, considering it the greatest eulogium on his departed daughter, whose virtue so nobly triumphed over that conventional pride, which William, and he taught his family to do the like, ridiculed and despised, and seized every fopportunity, moral, reli

gious, and political, to smooth it down to the happy medium of reason, and the common sense of mankind. This is the true spirit of liberty and equality. Mr. Heartwell condescended to go to Gowanfield; and they met in its little garden. The aristocrat had never before spoken to the peasant, nor heard him speak. He was at once ashamed and delighted. He felt himself in every respect to be an inferior person to the peasant, and nobly acknowledged the absurd prejudice of hereditary nobility. Captain Gordon's high praise of his worthy father-in-law was fully corroborated in the conversation.

After having expressed the most cordial regret for his conduct, mentioning Mary with a becoming tenderness of sorrow, and obtained her father's pardon, Mr. Heartwell proposed to educate one of William's daughters at his own expense, and under the immediate auspices of Mrs. Gordon. William at first spurned at the proposal, and was about to expatiate on its presumption, and the character which Heartwell had assumed compared with his former behaviour, when the gentleman added :

:

"Fear not, William Hepburn, worthy [man, your daughter shall be both fortunate and happy."

On this extraordinary and important proposal William consulted Mr. Gordon, his son-in-law, by whose advice he was persuaded to consent to Mr. Heartwell's benevolent offer. "Heartwell," said the Captain, has natural virtues and redeeming qualities about him, which will ultimately be his own and your daughter's happiness."

A preceptress of the first acquirements was accordingly procured, and the sister next in age to Mrs. Gordon was put under the tuition of her governess at the villa.

Jeanie Hepburn was about fifteen years old at the time. In elegance of form and beauty of lineament, she was another Mary; and her yet untutored sentiments made happy promise, also, of excellent mental endowments. The progress which she made in the acquirement of her education was remarkably rapid. She was accordingly in a very short time mistress of many an elegant, and every use. ful accomplishment.

Mr. Heartwell and his amiable sister, the cheerful lady Anve, frequently visited at the villa. By this means the lady had many opportunities of seeing her brother's lovely ward, for whom a sisterly affection daily increased, until at length they could scarcely be a day without seeing and walking with each other by the waterside.

At the age of seventeen Jeanie Hepburn was Mrs. Heartwell, and the happy lady of Elmton-hall. She was so like her lamented sister that Mr. Heartwell would say with a melancholy happiness," Mary Hepburn yet lives."

In the meantime, Hector Macburn, the once proud farmer of Thrisleton, and

ruling-elder to the reverend Doctor Gabriel Bruntsteen, was nearly a settled affair, viz: habit and repute, a debauchee, spending his cash in low booths at fairs, toping for days and nights together with Dame Maclinkem, and rapidly losing caste. At rental-day, Hec was minus a goodly portion of his rent, which he could not, by any means, contrive to pay. He was, accordingly, compelled to own himself insolvent, and, of course, to give up the farm. Latterly, the ex-elder became a wanderer in the eligible capacity and character of cow-doctor, or quack. But Hector was best known in the country round about by his newly acquired soubriquet of "Drunken Macburn, the sow-libber."

Miss Grizzel Bruntsteen, we have been credibly informed, lived and died in single blessedness. At one time, indeed, it was bruited in Gath, that Miss Girzie Bruntsteen was actually a bride! but this must have been either a complete hoax, or an abortion.

Of the three Graces heretofore mentioned, we have learned, from indubitable authority, that one had a child in bastardy to an itinerant packman and atheist ; another became the rib of Tam Burnwin's foreman, a worthless fellow, who was oftener in Lowrie Maclinkem's hostelrie than in his own house; and one had the good fortune to be wooed by the beadle of the parish.

Old Mungo Brown was not only permitted to remain in the cot which he loved, but had, from the Laird, a small allowance weekly all his life.

Margaret Henbane and her stalwart boy were kept by Mr. Gordon, at the villa. Jamie was keeper of the rookery, which no one durst with impunity molest. Jamie complained that "he didna like the sclate house at the villa sae weel as bis mither's auld thack cot o' the bog." To gratify the trusty creature, Captain Gordon reared a wild hut, near the very brink of the water-fall; t which Jamie frequently resorted, and in which he was peculiarly happy. It was a species of wild menagerie, in which Jamie kept foxes, hares, squirrels, owls, hawks, and other kinds of beasts and birds, of his own taming. Jamie ycleped himself, "King of the woods"; and to distinguish his royal head, he wore, in his diadem, or blue bonnet, two or three feathers, from the wing of a scottish eagle, which he had caught one morning on the mountain, as it was endeavouring to rise with a lamb in its talons. Jamie was very useful, indeed, indispensable t the captain and Mr. Heartwell in hunting excursions; in one of which, at a moment of imminent peril, he saved both their lives.

Mr. Heartwell did not forget his old acquaintance and favourite, Fanny Fairbearn. The fair and fertile farm of Thrisleton was now given in lease to her loving husband, Tam Burnwin, at a moderate rent. Thomas, of course, never needed to wield the heavy forehammer more. In a few years he was among the wealthiest and most respectable farmers in the parish; and everybody now saluted him with Mr. Burnwin, of Thrisleton.

After the demise of his amiable and gifted daughter, William Hepburn resided but for a short time at Gowanfield. A neat silvan lodge was reared for him on Mr. Gordon's little estate, the site and situation of which was chosen by the philosopher himself. The new cottage was built on the north side, and at about forty yards distant from the Burn, embossed amid all kinds of forest trees and brushwood. From the front door, which faced to the south-west, William cut a hermit-like woodland walk to within a few paces of the brink of a precipitous crag, whose shaggy juttiness overhung the water. At the termination of this bosky promenade, he also erected, on the rock, a rude seat, and embowered it with many beautiful exotic and indigenous shrubs.

From the deserted, and now melancholy garden at Gowanfield, Mary's fine selection of rose bushes, plants, and flowering herbs, was removed to her father's picturesque seclusion, were they were mixed, without distinction or arrangement, among the wild favourites of nature, that grew in great luxuriancy, round and about the hermitage.

David Hepburn, from his recent severe losses, was now in a state bordering almost on destitution. William felt extremely unhappy to see his brother in such distressful circumstances; he therefore, gave him the lease of Gowanfield, to which David, with his young family, gratefully removed. William stil! assisted a little in the cultivation of the farm, as the new farmer was entirely ig norant of the art of agriculture. By this, and other means favourable to his rural economy, David Hepburn soon saw himself possessed of a competency, for which he was ever and cordially grateful to his benevolent brother.

In his silvan hermitage, William Hepburn would have been one of the happiest of mankind, but for one feeling: the idea of his beloved, his lamented Mary frequently visited his mind. He saw her in all her loveliness, heard her voice addressing him in the sweetness of innocence, love, and wisdom. Sometimes. in these illusory aberrations of his soul, he would converse with Mary, as if she were still in being, and in his presence!

During these sweet hallucinations, indeed, William, it might be said, was happier than common mortals. It was only when the illusion was broken by the stern reality of truth, that the darkness of sorrow came over his soul. Then he would start, and calmly mutter to himself, "But where is my beloved Mary! Alas! my child is sleeping, smileless, voiceless, in the unapproachable and incommunicative grave!"

Many a man who has killed his friend, would, the moment before and the instant after, have died to save him.

Temper goes much farther than reason in the making and breaking of friendship.

"PSHA!

A DAINTY CHAPTER.

nonsense! - Englishmen know nothing whatever of the art and mystery of cookery. Plain roast and boil is all they have yet attained to, notwithstanding their scientific researches and learned discoveries in everything else tending to the happiness and benefit of mankind; so true it is that "Heaven sends food, and the devil sends cooks." Have we not princely quadrupeds, high fed poultry, glorious fish; the finest vegetables and fruits of Europe, and yet all these things are ignominiously treated, and plain roast and boil is still the burthen of the song. "They manage those things better in France." But, as Hamlet observes, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy," and we John Bull's not only sadly abuse whatever we have to use, but we reject and despise a thousand other good things, because, forsooth, custom does not sanction their adoption. Now, a fig for custom in cookery, say I; plain roast and boiled I much delight in, they are delicious in their way, but I would have fifty other delicacies, from their skilful combination and that harmony of parts which constitutes perfection in every branch of the fine arts-and good cooking is a fine art, after all. Now, I shall be told that a diversity of cooking is like that of opinion, and that de gustibus non est disputandum is conclusive argument in refutation of any determined culinary laws, so say I; but, though the multitude may not relish Caviaar, why let prejudice prevent its being tried?-and prejudice it is that alone places a barrier to the English ever becoming good cooks. I remember a friend having greatly extolled a delicious French dish we ate together at the Baron Du Bois', last summer, at Paris, who, some time after, being told that he had been eating frogs' hind propellers, took it into his head to become exceedingly sick; why, it was prejudice that made him ill, not the frogs' meat, which is a marvellous nice thing.

The ancients have left behind them authentic records of their taste in all things, and certes in the gastronomic line many matters are mentioned, that prima facie would not appear very tempting to modern appetites. I cannot say I should think the flavour of lampreys improved by their having been fattened upon slaves. Heliogabalus, that imperial gourmond, and Apicius, that cook of cooks, delighted in a dish of ostrich brains. I can't imagine why they should be better than the brains of any other bird, but, perhaps, my brains, being of a very ordinary quality, may account for that feeling. Plutarch tells us that the gravid sow was trampled to death, in order to make a more delicious dish when cooked; and pigs were frequently stuffed with smaller animals and assafœtida, in which state this dish was named "Porcus Trojanus," probably with some allusion to the Trojan horse and