No, don't smile, Philip, now, so scornfully! - While you look so Scornful and strong, I feel as if I were standing and trembling, Fancying the burn in the dark a wide and rushing river.

And I feel coming into me from you, or it may be from elsewhere, Strong contemptuous resolve; I forget, and I bound as across it. But after all, you know, it may be a dangerous river."

"Oh, if it were so, Elspie," he said, "I can carry you over." "Nay," she replied, "you would tire of having me for a burthen.” "O sweet burthen," he said, "and are you not light as a feather?" "But it is deep, very likely," she said, "over head and ears too." "O let us try," he answered, "the waters themselves will support

us,

Yea, very ripples and waves will form to a boat underneath us;
There is a boat," he said, "and a name is written upon it,
'Love," he said, and kissed her. -

"But I will read your books, though,"

Said she, "you 'll leave me some, Philip."

"Not I," replied he, "a volume. This is the way with you all, I perceive, high and low together. Women must read, as if they did n't know all beforehand: Weary of plying the pump, we turn to the running water, And the running spring will needs have a pump built upon it. Weary and sick of our books, we come to repose in your eye-light, As to the woodland and water, the freshness and beauty of Nature, Lo, you will talk, forsooth, of the things we are sick to the death of."

"What," she said, "and if I have let you become my sweetheart, I am to read no books! but you may go your ways then,

And I will read," she said, "with my father at home as I used to." "If you must have it," he said, "I myself will read them to you."

"Well," she said, "but no, I will read to myself, when I choose it; What, you suppose we never read anything here in our Highlands, Bella and I with the father in all our winter evenings!

But we must go, Mr. Philip—”

"I shall not go at all," said He, "if you call me Mr. Thank heaven! that's over forever." "No, but it's not," she said, "it is not over, nor will be. Was it not then," she asked, "the name I called you first by? No, Mr. Philip, no-you have kissed me enough for two nights; No-come, Philip, come, or I'll go myself without you."

"You never call me Philip," he answered, "until I kiss you." As they went home by the moon that waning now rose later, Stepping through mossy stones by the runnel under the alders, Loitering unconsciously, "Philip," she said, "I will not be a lady,

We will do work together, you do not wish me a lady,
It is a weakness perhaps and a foolishness; still it is so;
I have been used all my life to help myself and others;
I could not bear to sit and be waited upon by footmen,
No, not even by women

"And, God forbid," he answered, "God forbid you should ever be aught but yourself, my Elspie! As for service, I love it not, I; your weakness is mine too,

I am sure Adam told you as much as that about me."

"I am sure," she said, "he called you wild and flighty."

"That was true," he said, "till my wings were clipped. But, my

Elspie,

You will at least just go and see my uncle and cousins,

Sister, and brother, and brother's wife. You should go, if you

liked it,

Just as you are; just what you are, at any rate, my Elspie.
Yes, we will go, and give the old solemn gentility stage-play
One little look, to leave it with all the more satisfaction. "

"That may be, my Philip," she said, "you are good to think of it. But we are letting our fancies run-on indeed; after all, it May all come, you know, Mr. Philip, to nothing whatever, There is so much that needs to be done, so much that may happen." "All that needs to be done," said he, "shall be done, and quickly."

And on the morrow he took good heart and spoke with David;
Not unwarned the father, nor had been unperceiving;
Fearful much, but in all from the first reassured by the Tutor.
And he remembered how he had fancied the lad from the first;
and

Then, too, the old man's eye was much more for inner than outer,
And the natural tune of his heart without misgiving
Went to the noble words of that grand song of the Lowlands,
Rank is the guinea stamp, but the man's a man for a' that.

Still he was doubtful, would hear nothing of it now, but insisted
Philip should go to his books: if he chose, he might write; if after
Chose to return, might come; he truly believed him honest.
But a year must elapse, and many things might happen.

Yet at the end he burst into tears, called Elspie, and blessed them;

"Elspie, my bairn," he said, "I thought not, when at the doorway Standing with you, and telling the young man where he would

find us,

I did not think he would one day be asking me here to surrender What is to me more than wealth in my Bothie of Tober-na

vuolich."

IX.

MARRIAGE.

Philip returned to his books, but returned to his Highlands

after;

Got a first, 't is said; a winsome bride, 't is certain.

There while courtship was ending, nor yet the wedding appointed, Under her father he studied the handling of hoe and of hatchet: Thither that summer succeeding came Adam and Arthur to see him Down by the lochs from the distant Glenmorison: Adam the

tutor,

Arthur, and Hope; and the Piper anon who was there for a visit; There did the four find Philip, the poet, the speaker, the Chartist, . . . Delving at Highland soil, and railing at Highland landlords, Railing, but more, as it seemed, for the fun of the Piper's fury. There saw they David and Elspie Mackaye, and the Piper was almost,

Almost deeply in love with Bella the sister of Elspie;

But the good Adam was heedful; they did not go too often.
There in the bright October, the gorgeous bright October,
When the brackens are changed, and heather blooms are faded,
And amid russet of heather and fern green trees are bonnie,
Alders are green, and oaks, the rowan scarlet and yellow,
Heavy the aspen, and heavy with jewels of gold the birch-tree,
There, when shearing had ended, and barley-stooks were garnered,
David gave Philip to wife his daughter, his darling Elspie;
Elspie the quiet, the brave, was wedded to Philip the poet.

So won Philip his bride. They are married and gone - But, oh,
Thou

Mighty one, Muse of great Epos, and Idyll the playful and tender,
Be it recounted in song, ere we part, and thou fly to thy Pindus,
(Pindus, is it, O Muse, or Etna, or even Ben-nevis ?)

Be it recounted in song, O Muse, of the Epos and Idyll,
Who gave what at the wedding, the gifts and fair gratulations.
Adam, the grave careful Adam, a medicine-chest and tool-box,
Hope a saddle, and Arthur a plough, and the Piper a rifle,
Airlie a necklace for Elspie, and Hobbes a Family Bible,
Airlie a necklace, and Hobbes a Bible and iron bedstead.

This was a note from the Tutor, the grave man nicknamed Adam
"I shall see you of course, my Philip, before your departure;
Joy be with you, my boy, with you and your beautiful Elspie.
Happy is he that found, and finding was not heedless;

Happy is he that found, and happy the friend that was with him." So won Philip his bride:

They are married, and gone to New Zealand. Five hundred pounds in pocket, with books, and two or three

pictures,

Tool-box, plough, and the rest, they rounded the sphere to New
Zealand.

There he hewed, and dug; subdued the earth and his spirit;
There he built him a home, there Elspie bare him his children,
David and Bella; perhaps ere this too an Elspie or Adam;

There hath he farmstead and land, and fields of corn and flax fields;

And the Antipodes too have a Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich.

QUI LABORAT, ORAT.

O ONLY Source of all our light and life,

Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel,

But whom the hours of mortal moral strife

Alone aright reveal!

Mine inmost soul, before thee inly brought,
Thy presence owns ineffable, divine;
Chastised each rebel self-encentred thought,
My will adoreth Thine.

With eye down-dropped, if then this earthly mind
Speechless remain, or speechless e'en depart-
Nor seek to see for what of earthly kind
Can see Thee as Thou art?

O not unowned, Thou shalt unnamed forgive.
In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare;
And if in work its life it seem to live

Shalt make that work be prayer.

Nor times shall lack, when while the work it plies,
Unsummoned powers the blinding film shall part,
And scarce by happy tears made dim, the eyes
In recognition-start.

But as Thou willest, give or e'en forbear

The beatific supersensual sight;

So, with Thy blessing blessed, that humbler prayer
Approach Thee morn and night.