horse's fut on the road, but it be to been yer
father snorin'."

"Me snorin'!" cried Jamie, starting and
rubbing his eyes. "Ye'r dhramin' yersel', Mary.
Ailsie, ye witch, are ye not gone to school yet?"

"Well, I'll go now, father," said Ailsie.
"Maybe," she thought, "Hughie 'll tell me
what to do with that letter afore I come back."

A thatched house, with a row of small latticed
windows blinking down at the sea in the strong
sunset, with a grotesque thorn looking over the
more distant gable, and an army of fierce
hollyhocks mustering about the little entry-door.
This was the school, and Mr. Hugh Devnish
was at this moment standing at his desk writing
"head-lines" in the copy-books of his pupils; a
young man with a grave busy face, and one hand
concealed in the breast of his coat. That hand
was deformed, and so Hugh Devnish had been
brought up to teach school, instead of to follow
the plough. That such breeding had not been
wasted, his face announced. Even the country
people around held him in unusual respect,
though he did not give them half as many long
words, nor talk Latin to them, like his predecessor,
Larry O'Mullan, who had died of hard
study, poor boy! at the age of eighty-five.

Hughie glanced through the window before
him, got suddenly red in the face, and cried
"Attention!" in a voice which made all the
lads and lasses look up from their copy-books.
The next moment a gipsy-faced girl walked in,
hung up her bonnet, and sat down on a form.

"What's your word, Ailsie MacQuillan?"
asked the schoolmaster, taking her book with a
severe and business-like air.

"Invitation, sir—navigation, I mane," said
Ailsie, demurely, studying her folded hands.

The master looked at her sharply, and
afterwards frowned severely, when, on going the
rounds of the desks, he found "Lady Betty
MacQuillan," "Castle Craigie," and other
foolish and meaningless words, scrawled
profanely over the page which was to have been
sacred to navigation alone. Ailsie was "kept
in" for bad conduct, and locked up alone in the
school after the other pupils had gone home.
And there, when the schoolmaster came to
release her, she was found plucking the roses
that hung in at the window, and sticking them
in the holes for the ink-bottles along the desks.
A crumpled note lay open before her.

We should hardly have said the schoolmaster
came in, for, though it was Hughie Devnish, he
appeared in a new character. This punished girl
was his wildest and least creditable pupil, and
yet, when he walked up to her in her disgrace,
he was trembling and blushing like his own
youngest " scholar" coming up for a whipping,
His eye caught the crumpled note, and he picked
it up and read it.

"I guessed how 'twas," he said, "but you're
surely not thinkin' of goin'?"

Now Ailsie had intended to ask his advice,
but the mischief that was in her would come out.
"Why should I not go as well as another?"
she asked, pettishly.

"Aroon, you know I would not like it," he
said.

"An' that's a reason, feth!" said Ailsie,
tossing her head, and beginning to pick a rose to
pieces.

"Ailsie," said the young man, vehemently,
"it was only the other day you told me here
that you could like me betther than all the
world, betther than Ned Mucklehern, for all his
fine land and his presents o' butther an' crame;
betther than Mehaffy the miller, that gave you
the fine speckled hen; betther than MacQuillan
o' the Reek——"

"Bad manners to him!" struck in Ailsie,
angrily, flinging a shower of rose-leaves from
her hand over the desks.

"You promised to be my wife, Ailsie."

"It all come o' keepin' me in for bad conduct,"
said Ailsie, swinging one foot with provoking
unconcern.

"No matter what it came of," said Hughie,
"you promised me. And you promised me as
well that you wouldn't go thrustin' yourself
among these people, that would only laugh at
you for your pains."

"I don't know why you should think I'd be
laughed at," said Ailsie, " barrin' you're ashamed
o' me!"

The schoolmaster's face blazed up, and with
all his heart in his eyes he gazed at her where
she sat with her ripe face half turned from the
sun coming through the lattice, and her dark
head framed in the roses.

"Ashamed o' you, mavourneen?" he said,
tenderly. " No; but there might be some
there that I wouldn't like you to come across,
an' you alone an' unprotected. MacQuillan o'
the Reek——"

"I slapped his face wanst!" cried Ailsie,
firing up again, "an' it's not likely he'll come
axin' me to do 't again."

"And there 'll be others there," he went on,
"that 'd fall in love wi' you maybe, an' snatch
you up from Hughie before he has enough
earned to marry you out o' hand."

"An' what if they did?" said Ailsie, with
wicked coolness.

"What if they did?" repeated Devnish,
slowly, looking at her with a pained appealing
look, as if expecting her to retract the cruel
words. "I tell you what it is, Ailsie," he
broke out, passionately, drawing his left hand
from its concealment, " I believe it's this that's
workin' at the bottom o' all your coldness.
You're tired already of a deformed lover. Go
to Lady Betty's ball then, an' find a husband
for yourself that you'll not be ashamed of.
Go——"

Just as Ailsie was getting pale, and the tears
coming into her eyes, a little door opened, and
a good-humoured-looking country woman came
into the schoolroom.

"Come in to your supper, Hughie," she said.
Och, is it Ailsie MacQuillan in penance the
night again? Girl alive! is it a love-letther
you're showin' the masther?"

"No, indeed, Mrs. Devnish," said Ailsie,