on the felicitous condition which rendered
it easy to indulge such impulses. Here
was another instance, and in her favour, of
the value of money.

"It has made more than one difference
to me," she thought that night, when she
was alone, and looked round the dismantled
study; "it has made me like old Mr.
Creswell, and hitherto I have only envied
him."

"Do be persuaded, dear Mrs. Ashurst,"
said Maud Creswell, in a tone of sincere
and earnest entreaty. She had made her
appearance at the widow's house early on
the day which succeeded her uncle's visit,
and had presented, in her own and in her
sister's name, as well as in that of Mr.
Creswell, a petition, which she was now
backing up with much energy. "Do come
and stay with us. We are not going
to have any company; there shall be
nothing that you can possibly dislike.
And Gerty and I will not tease you or
Miss Ashurst; and you shall not be
worried by Tom or anything. Do come,
dear, dear Mrs. Ashurst; never mind the
nasty lodgings; they can go on getting
properly aired, and cleaned, and so on,
until you are tired of Woolgreaves, and
then you can go to them at any time. But
not from your own house, where you have
been so long, into that little place, in a
street, too. Say you will come, now do."

Mrs. Ashurst was surprised and pleased.
She recognised the girl's frank affection
for her; she knew the generous kindness
of heart which made her so eager to do
her uncle's bidding, and secure a long
visit to the splendid home he had given his
nieces, to those desolate women. Nothing
but a base mean order of pride could have
revolted against the offer so made, and so
pressed. Mrs. Ashurst yielded, and Maud
Creswell returned to her uncle in high
delight to announce that she had been
successful in the object of her embassy.

"How delightful it will be to have the
dear old lady here, Gerty," said Maud to
her sister. "The more I see of her the
better I like her, and I mean to be so kind
and attentive to her. I think Miss Ashurst
is too grave, and she always seems so busy
and preoccupied: I don't think she can
rouse her mother's spirits much."

"No, I think not," said Gertrude. "I
like the old lady very much too; but I
don't quite know about Miss Ashurst; I
think the more I see of her, the less I seem
to know her. You must not leave her
altogether to me, Maud. I wonder why
one feels so strange with her? Heigh-ho!"
said the girl with a comical look, and a
shake of her pretty head, "I suppose it's
because she's so superior."

On the following day, Mrs. Ashurst and
Marian took leave of their old home, and
were conveyed in one of Mr. Creswell's
carriages to Woolgreaves.

SCOTCH PEARLS.

SCOTCH pearls have again come into fashion.
The revival of the public taste in their favour
may be attributed, partly to the recent failure
of the Manaar fisheries in Ceylon, partly to the
cheapness of the western gem, and in some
measure, perhaps, to the fact that large quantities
of Scottish pearls have been purchased
by Queen Victoria and the Empress Eugenie.
Some fifteen years ago, these pearls were
scarce and lightly esteemed; but, owing to the
exertions of a German merchant, and the care
taken by him to select and exhibit the best
specimens, the trade, which had languished for
about a century, has very largely revived, and
is now recognised as a legitimate branch of the
business of the dealer in precious stones.

People are so much accustomed, when pearls
are spoken of, to picture to themselves the
Persian Gulf and its swart eastern divers, that
they rarely think of the produce of their own
shores, or imagine that the fine, delicate, pink-
hued treasures which they admire in the windows
of the jewellers, have been fished up out
of their own native rivers. And yet this is not
only so; but the practice of wading in the
streams to fish for the mussels containing the
pearl, dates back almost to antiquity. Long
before the jeweller's art had become so common
as to place ornaments for bodily decoration
within reach of the multitude, pearls of great
size and beauty were to be found in Scotland,
in the possession of the humble, who,
though they could not fail to admire them,
were quite ignorant of their value. Rather
more than a century ago, some artist, cunning
in the detection of precious stones, proclaimed
their worth, and a brisk trade in
pearls sprang up between the bleak north of
Scotland and the wealthy marts of the English
metropolis. The fishing was confined to Perthshire
and one or two counties beyond the
Grampians; but the chief seat of the industry
was at the head waters of the river Tay.

For a time the dwellers on the banks of the
Tay were zealous, and pearls worth thousands
of pounds were sent up to the London jewellers;
but for a hundred years—between 1761
and 1861—either from lack of zeal on the part
of the fishers, or from a falling off in the
supply of the shell-fish, the fisheries were
allowed to fall into disuse. During that long
interval, Scotch pearls, which had before been
plentiful, were only to be found in certain