And I am given to understand that shortly
after this, the lady of the castle sent a message
to her guests to say she was indisposed (Ailsie
had picked up a few pretty words), from the
heat, and must beg them to excuse her absence
from amongst them for the rest of the day.

It was on this very evening that Hughie
Devnish was walking up and down his
schoolroom floor, musing, I am told, on the
impossibilitv of his enduring in the future to have
Ailsie coming into his school at any hour she
pleased, to play the mischief with his feelings,
and the lady patroness amongst his boys and
girls. He had just come to the point of resolving
to give up his labours here, and to go
off to seek his fortune in America, when click!
went the latch of the door, and (of course, thinks
he, it must be a dream), in walked Ailsie. Not
the Lady Bountiful of the morning, in satin gown
and nodding feathers, but the veritable old Ailsie
of four years ago, in the same old garb, cotton
dress, brogues, straw bonnet tipped over her
nose, and all (where on earth did she get them?)
in which she had tripped in to him on that other
August evening, of which this was the anniversary,
when she had shown him her invitation to
Lady Betty's ball.

Now, the gloaming was just putting out the
glare of the sunset behind the latticed windows,
and when Hughie had pinched himself and
found that he was not dreaming at all, he
next became very sure that he had gone out
of his senses with trouble, and that he was
looking at an object conjured up before his eyes by
his own diseased imagination. However, the
apparition looked very substantial as it
approached, and sitting down on the end of one
of the forms, it displayed a paper which it
unfolded in its hands—hands that were white
instead of brown, making the only difference
between this and the old Ailsie.

"I've got a letther here, Misther Devnish,"
said Ailsie's old voice, speaking with Ailsie's old
brogue, and in the sly mischievous tone that
Hughie remembered well: " an', if ye plase, I
want ye to answer it for me. I'm a bad clark
mysel', ye know."

Not knowing what to say to her, he took the
letter out of her hand and glanced over it. It
was a proposal of marriage from Ailsie's old
tormentor, MacQuillan of the Reek.

The schoolmaster was trembling, you may
believe, with many confused ideas and sensations
when he folded the letter and returned it; but
he inked his pen manfully, and produced a sheet
of paper, then sat waiting with much patience
for his visitor's dictation. But Ailsie sat quiet
with her eyes upon the floor, and so there was a
cruel pause.

"Well?" says Hughie, at last, with a bewitched
feeling, as if he were addressing only
his pupil of old days, " what am I to say in the
answer?"

"Feth I don't know," says Ailsie.

"But what reply do you mean to give?"
asked Hughie, striving, we are assured, to
command himself. " Am I to say yes or no in the
letter?"

"I tell ye I don't know, Hughie Devnish,"
said Ailsie, crossly. " I gave a promise to
another, an' he never has freed me from it yet. I
b'lieve ye'll know best what to put in the letther
yersel'."

"Ailsie!" cried Hughie, rising to his feet,
"did you come here for nothing but to dhrive
me mad? Or, avourneen, is it possible you
would marry me yet?"

"Feth it is, Hughie," said Ailsie.

And after the letter was written they went in
and had tea with the Widow Devnish.

The next mornjng Miss MacQuillan appeared
amongst her guests as if nothing had happened,
but before night a whisper flew from ear to ear
that the heiress was engaged; while the lady
herself did not contradict the report. Every
man looked darkly at his neighbour, and " Who
is he?" was the question on every lip. At last
"It is not I," said one noble drone, and flew off
to seek honey elsewhere; and " It is not I,"
said the others, one by one, and followed his
example; and by-and-by Ailsie was left peacefully
in possession of her castle; whereupon there was
a quiet wedding, at which Mary, Jamie, and the
Widow Devnish were the only guests.

A nine days' wonder expires on the tenth,
and after a few years Hugh Devnish MacQuillan,
Esq., was looked upon as no despicable
person by many who thought it their duty to
sneer on his wedding-day.

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