OF

Margaret Lyndsay.

BY THE AUTHOR OF

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF SCOTTISH LIFE.

BOSTON:

WELLS AND LILLY-COURT-STREET,

1823.

THIRTY years ago there stood, under the shelter of the highest line of the Braid-hills, a cluster of cottages, remarkable for their romantic, yet homely beauty. A few intermingled sycamore and horse-chesnut trees rising in the midst of them, and seeming to belong to all alike, connected these lowly dwellings in one spirit of contentment and peace; so that they looked as if inhabited by a few families bound together by the ties of blood, and following the same quiet and retired occupation. Each had its own small garden in front, inclosed by its hawthorn and sweetbriar hedge, and humming cheerfully with its own hive of bees. Behind the hamlet was an old pasturage, not wholly cleared of furze, fern, and broom, and shaded by a wood on the hill-side, in whose thick covert the blackbirds and linnets built their nests, and where they were heard singing, from a great distance, in the calm of the morning or evening sunlight. The rich cultivation that belongs to the neighbourhood of a large city came close up to the pastoral bounds of this almost suburban village, and was stopt in its progress only by the nature