in their seats considerably nearer the hearth, with the evident intention of enjoying a nice, comfortable gossip over the glowing embers; and Mrs. Johnstone, as the reader will be prepared to hear, regaled her friend with a long and circumstantial account of her niece's love-affair, together with the sad circumstances attending it, which had occasioned their sudden visit to the Scottish capital. "Wae's me," exclaimed Mrs. Hamilton, at the close of her friend's sad recital; "to think o' a bonnie young creature having gone through sae much sorrow already, and likely to suffer a hantle more ere she's by wi' it! Oh! are'na the ways o' Providence dark and unscrutable to the like o' us, poor blind mortals as we are? Dearie me, Mrs. Johnstone, but I sadly fear your niece winna get much to comfort her here. I fear it's a doomed boat she's embarked in. Willie Telford will never be able to escape from his cruel captors. Oh, but my heart's wae for the poor sweet lassie; and ye say her life's bound up in his?" Mrs. Johnstone replied in the affirmative, adding, "that it would be much better not to damp the bright hopes entertained by Jeanie Irving regarding her lover's escape." "Don't be afraid o' me saying anything that would harm the winsome bit lassie," interrupted Mrs. Hamilton, raising the corner of her apron to her eyes, "no, no; I know too well what it is to suffer, ever to add to the distress o' a' fellow-creature. Well do I mind the day when my husband gaed awa to the Pentlands. 'Jeanie,' says he, 'I feel uncommon sad at leaving you this day, my woman,' says he; and says I, 'Why John?' for ye see I didna quite take up his meaning, 'why should ye be so grieved, when ye're going to fight a good fight for the Covenant?' says I. 'Oh,' quo' he, 'I feel as if I never should see you again,' says he; and wi' that I took to the shivering all over. 'If that be your thought,' says I, 'John, do bide wi' me, for I've many a time heard people wiser than me say, it's ill going away frae hame wi' sic gloomy thoughts in one's mind.' 'Ah, na, Jeanie, my woman,' says he, 'may be it's a foolish fancy on my part, an' it wadna do to yield to it;' an wi' that he gaed awa, an' I never set my eyes on him since syne. Was'na that a sad, sad thing! an' many's the time I've blamed mysel' since then for not making him bide at hame, but ye see, it was a' in the cards, an' what will be maun be." Thus having testified her submission to the stern decrees of fate, Mrs. Hamilton turning to Mrs. Johnstone, abruptly demanded of her if she was a believer in dreams?