in spite of the bitter spring winds, but she found no little native lurking among the birches, and was disappointed to come to the other side of the wood much more quickly than she expected, without the détour being of any practical use.

The turf sloped away to a little stream that went singing cheerily over sparkling pebbles, bubbling and foaming round the base of grey lichened rocks, that reared their heads above the water, as if in angry remonstrance at their daring to interfere with its progress. On the opposite bank there stretched a bit of muirland pasture, studded with little knolls of heather, growing green, in preparation for its richer autumn tints. The pale spring sunlight began to grow more mellow in its light at this afternoon hour; it glinted on the little gurgling stream, lighted up the feathery birch glade, and lay in golden patches on the opposite bank, where Grace noticed some cattle begin to gather on the heathery knolls, as if they had come to enjoy the last hour of bright sunshine. Perhaps some little cottages may be sheltered behind those hillocks, Grace thought; and she began to examine how the grey rocks lay among the water, and whether she could possibly find dry footing across the stream. Presently she came upon a smooth row of stones, that were evidently used as a thoroughfare. She had already begun to cross them, keeping her eye cautiously fixed on the stepping-stones as she went along, when she was startled by a voice which sounded close beside her. On glancing round she saw on the opposite bank a boy standing with a huge twisted cudgel in his hand, brandishing it in a warlike attitude. He seemed to have suddenly appeared round one of the hillocks, and was now shouting excitedly, in his rough northern dialect, as he waved his stick:

"Hold back, mem; hold back, I tell ye. Blackie is in one o' his ill moods the day, and he's no safe. Dinna come a foot farther."

Grace stood bewildered, balancing herself on the stepping-stones; the apparition was so sudden that it almost took away her breath, and the commands were so peremptory that she did not dare to disregard them by going forward; but it seemed very hard to beat an ignominious retreat, for here seemed to be just what she was in search of—a boy as neglected-looking as any that were to be seen in the courts and alleys of Edinburgh; of the very type which old Adam declared there was not one to be found in all the lands of Kirklands. His head was bare, and his flaxen hair so bleached by the sun that it looked quite white against his bronzed face. He looked at Grace with a grave interest in his large blue eyes, as if he would like to know a little more; but he still brandished his cudgel before her, and shouted resolutely:

"Hold back, or Blackie will be at ye."

"But who is Blackie?" asked Grace, with a gasp, looking furtively round in the direction of the birch wood, in case the said Blackie might be approaching from behind.

"Who's Blackie!" said the boy, repeating the question, as if to hold up to ridicule the absurd ignorance which it implied. "Do ye no ken that Blackie is Gowrie's bull—the ill-natertest bull in a' the country-side?"

"And what have you to do with Blackie?" asked Grace, glancing across to the hillocks, where some cattle grazed inoffensively, in search of the formidable animal.

"I herd him—I'm Gowrie's herd-laddie. They're all terrible easy-managed beasts but him, and he's full o' ill tricks. He can't bear woman-folks," added the boy, with a slight mischievous twinkle in his eye; for he felt more at his ease now, having assured himself that Blackie was much too intent on some sweet blades of grass to give any trouble at that moment.

"Gowrie! that's the old farm down in the hollow there, isn't it? And how long have you been herding?" asked Grace, who still stood on the stepping-stones, and pursued the conversation with the noisy little stream babbling round her.

"I was hired to Gowrie two year come Marti'mas, and afore that I herded some sheep on the hill yonder. We had a hut all to oursels. I slept wi' them a' night, and liked them terrible weel, a hantle better than the cattle," and his eye wandered regretfully to a bleak mountain slope, which had evidently pleasant associations for the little herd-boy.

"Did you ever go to school?" asked Grace, anxious to introduce her subject, for she thought she would like this boy for a scholar.

"Ay, did I once, when I was a wee laddie. I was in the 'Third Primer,' and could read pretty big words," and he fumbled in his jacket-pocket for the collection of dog-eared leaves which represented his store of learning.

"Of course you can't go to school now on week days, when you have to watch the cows; but perhaps you go to Sunday-school?" Grace asked; and will it make her desire to do good appear very narrow and small, if it must be confessed that she hoped to hear that he did not go to any? Her mind was soon set at rest, however, for he presently replied:

"The school at the kirk, ye mean? No; granny's dreadful deaf, and we don't go to the kirk. I belong to Gowrie a' the week, but I'm granny's on Sabbath; there's aye a deal to do, brakin' sticks and mendin' up things, ye see."

"And you really don't go to a Sunday-school?" exclaimed Grace, hardly able to restrain her satisfaction at this piece of information. "But, by-the-by, I have never asked your name. I should like to hear it, because I hope we are going to be friends."

"They call me Geordie Baxter," he replied, as he ran to check the wanderings of one of the cows, while Grace stood watching him, as she pondered how she might best frame an invitation asking him to be her scholar. He seemed so manly and independent, though he was so young; and, somehow, it was all so different from how she had planned her finding of scholars. She had been looking for a cottage where the tattered children might be crawling about the doorstep, making mudpies and quarrelling with each other; and then she thought she would knock at the door, after she had spoken to them for a little, and ask their mother if she might have them to teach on Sunday. But this boy, ignorant and neglected as he seemed to be, had certainly a manly dignity which made Grace's invitations more difficult than she expected; though, after all, he could only spell words of one syllable, and he went neither to school nor to church. Surely he was the sort of scholar she had been in search of. So when he returned to his former position opposite the stepping-stones, after having admonished the straying cow—

"Well, Geordie, I am going to ask you if you will come to Kirklands, where I live, on Sunday afternoons; and since you do not go to any school, I can read a little to you, and perhaps help you to learn something?" said Grace, not venturing to be more explicit on what she wished to teach. "Do you think you would like to come?"

"Ay, would I," he replied, eagerly. "I'm terrible anxious to learn to read the long words without spellin' them." And then he stopped and looked hesitatingly at Grace. "Would ye take Jean, I wonder?" he said, coming a few steps on the stones in his eagerness. "She's my sister, and a good bit littler than me, and she can't read any, but I'm thinkin' she could learn," he added, in a sanguine tone.

"Oh yes, certainly; I shall be so happy if you will bring your sister," replied Grace, looking radiant, for she had; ust been thinking that though Geordie was certainly a very valuable unit, he could hardly, in his own person, make the "Sunday class" on which she had set her heart.

"But I thought ye couldn't bear poor folk at Kirklands," said Geordie, reflectively, glancing at Grace, after he had pondered over the invitation. "Granny's aye frightened they will be takin' our housie from us, as they have done from so many puir folk;" and then the boy stopped suddenly, and a deep red flush rose under his bronzed cheek as he remembered that he must be speaking to one of those same "Kirklands folk."

"Oh, your grandmother needn't be afraid of that.