Some large flakes of snow are in the air-and they seem to waver and whirl, though, an hour ago, there was not a breath all over the region. Faster they fall and faster the flakes are almost as large as leaves-and over-head, whence so suddenly has come that huge yellow cloud? "Flora, where are you? where are you, Flora?"—and from the huge hide the boy leaps up, and sees that no Flora is in the glen. But yonder is a moving speck far off upon the snow! 'Tis she-'tis she-and again Hamish turns his eyes upon the quarry, and the heart of the hunter burns within him like a new-stirred fire. Shrill as the eagle's cry, disturbed in his eyry, he sends his voice down the glen-and Flora, with cheeks pale and bright by fits, is at last at his side. Panting and speechless she stands-and then dizzily sinks fainting on his breast. Her hair is ruffled by the wind that revives her, and her face all moistened by the snow-flakes, now not falling, but driven-for the day has undergone a dismal change, and all over the skies are now lowering savage symptoms of a fast-coming night-storm.

Bare is poor Flora's head, and sorely drenched her hair-that an hour or two ago glittered in the sunshine. Her shivering frame misses now the warmth of the plaid which almost no cold can penetrate, and which had kept the vital current flowing freely in many a bitter blast. What would the miserable boy give now for the coverings lying far away, which, in his foolish passion, he flung down to chase that fatal deer! "Oh! Flora! if you would not fear to stay here by yourself-under the protection of God, who surely will not forsake you-soon will I go and come from the place where our plaids are lying; and under the shelter of the deer, we may be able to outlive the hurricane-you wrapt up in them-and folded-O my dearest sister-in my arms!"-"I will go with you down the glen, Hamish!" and she left his breast-but, weak as a day-old lamb, tottered-and sank down among the snow. The cold-intense as if the air were ice-had chilled her very heart, after the heat of that long race; and it was manifest that here she must be for the night— to live or to die! And the night seemed already come, so full was the lift of snow; while the glimmer every moment

became gloomier, as if the day was expiring long before its time. Howling at a distance down the glen was heard a sea-born tempest from the Linnhe-Loch, where now they both knew the tide was tumbling in, bringing with it sleet and snow-blasts from afar; and from the opposite quarter of the sky an inland tempest was raging to meet it, while every lesser glen had its own uproar, so that on all hands they were environed with death.

"I will go-and, till I return, leave you with God.""Go, Hamish!" and he went and came-as if he had been endowed with the raven's wings.

Miles away-and miles back had he flown-and an hour had not been with his going and his coming-but what a dreary wretchedness meanwhile had been hers! She feared that she was dying-that the cold snow-storm was killing her-and that she would never more see Hamish, to say to him a right last farewell. Soon as he was gone, all her courage had died. Alone, she feared death-and wept-and wept-and wept in the wildernessthinking how hard it was for one so young thus miserably to die! He came and her whole being was changed. Folded up in both the plaids she felt as if she were in heaven. "Oh! kiss me-kiss me, Hamish-for thy love -great as it is—or never hadst thou travelled so the long snows for my sake-is not as my love-and you must never forget me, Hamish-when your poor Flora is dead!"

Religion with these two young creatures was as clear as the light of the Sabbath-day-and their belief in heaven just the same as in earth. The will of God they thought of just as they thought of their parents' will-and the same was their loving obedience to its decrees. If she was to die-supported now by the presence of her brother— Flora was utterly resigned; if she were to live, her heart imaged to itself the very forms of her worshipping gratitude! But all at once she closed her eyes-spake notbreathed not-and, as the tempest howled and rumbled in the gloom that fell around them like blindness, Hamish almost fell down, thinking that she was dead!

"Wretched sinner that I am!-my wicked madness brought her here to die of cold in the snow!" And he smote his heart-and tore his hair-and feared to look up,

lest the angry eye of God were looking on him through the storm.

All at once, without speaking a word, Hamish lifted Flora in his arms, and walked away up the glen-here almost narrowed into a pass. Distraction gave him supernatural strength, and her weight seemed that of an infant. Some walls of what had once been a house, he had suddenly remembered, were but a short way off-whether or not they had any roof, he had forgotten; but the thought even of such shelter seemed a thought of salvation. There it was a snow-drift at the opening that had once been a door-snow up to the holes once windows-the wood of the roof had been carried off for fuel, and the snow-flakes were falling in, as if they would soon fill up the inside of the ruin! The snow in front was all trampled as if by sheep; and carrying in his burden under the low lintel, lo! the place was filled with a flock that had foreknown the hurricane, and all huddled together, looked on him as on the shepherd come to see how they were faring in the

storm.

And a young shepherd he was, with a lamb apparently dying in his arms. All colour-all motion-all breath seemed to be gone-and yet something convinced his heart that she was yet alive. The ruined hut was roofless, but across an angle of the walls, some pine-branches had been flung as a sort of shelter for the sheep or cattle that might repair thither in cruel weather-some pinebranches left by the wood-cutters, who had felled the few trees that once stood at the very head of the glen. Into that corner the snowdrift had not forced its way, and he sat down there with Flora in the cherishing of his embrace, hoping that the warmth of his distracted heart might be felt by her who was as cold as a corpse. The chill air was somewhat softened by the breath of the huddled flock, and the edge of the cutting wind blunted by the stones. It was a place in which it seemed possible that she might revive-miserable as it was with mire-mixed snow-and almost cold as one supposes the grave. And she did revive-and under the half-open lids the dim blue appeared to be not yet life-deserted. It was yet but the afternoonnightlike though it was-and he thought, as he breathed

upon her lips, that a faint red returned, and that they felt his kisses poured over them to drive death away.

"Oh! father, go seek for Hamish, for I dreamt to-night he was perishing in the snow !"—" Flora, fear not, God is with us. "" '—" Wild swans, they say, are come to LochPhoil-let us go, Hamish, and see them-but no rifle—for why kill creatures said to be so beautiful?" Over them where they lay, bended down the pine-branch roof, as if it would give way beneath the increasing weight of snow; -but there it still hung-though the drift came over their feet and up to their knees, and seemed stealing upwards to be their shroud. "Oh! I am overcome with drowsiness, and fain would be allowed to sleep. Who is disturbing me-and what noise is this in our house?"-" Fear not

fear not, Flora-God is with us.' "Mother! am I lying in your bosom? My father surely is not out in the storm! Oh! I have had a most dreadful dream!" and with such mutterings as these, Flora relapsed again into that perilous sleep-which soon becomes that of death.

Night itself came-but Flora and Hamish knew it not— and both lay now motionless in one snow-shroud. Many passions-though earthborn, all divine-pity, and grief, and love, and hope, and at last despair-had prostrated the strength they had so long supported-and the brave boywho had been for some time feeble as a very child after a fever-with a mind confused and wandering, and in its perplexities, sore afraid of some nameless ill, had submitted to lay down his head beside his Flora's, and soon became like her insensible to the night and all its storms!

Bright was the peat-fire in the hut of Flora's parents in Glenco and they were among the happiest of the humbly happy, blessing this the birthday of their blameless child. They thought of her singing her sweet songs by the fireside of the hut in Glencreran-and tender thoughts of her cousin Hamish were with them in their prayers. No warning came to their ears in the sugh or the howl; for Fear it is that creates its own ghosts, and all its own ghostlike visitings, and they had seen their Flora in the meekness of the morning, setting forth on her way over the quiet mountains, like a fawn to play. Sometimes, too, Love, that starts at shadows, as if they were of the grave,

is strangely insensible to things that might well strike it with dismay. So was it now with the dwellers in the hut at the head of Glencreran. Their Hamish had left them in the morning-night had come, and he and Flora were not there-but the day had been almost like a summerday, and they in their infatuation never doubted that the happy creatures had changed their minds, and that Flora had returned with him to Glenco. Hamish had laughingly said, that haply he might surprise the people in that glen by bringing back to them Flora on her birthday—and, strange though it afterwards seemed to her to be, that belief prevented one single fear from touching the mother's heart, and she and her husband that night lay down in sleep unhaunted by any woful dream!

What could have been done for them, had they been told by some good or evil spirit, that their children were in the clutches of such a night? As well seek for a single bark in the middle of the misty main! But the inland storm had been seen brewing among the mountains round the King's-House, and hut had communicated with hut, though far apart, in that wilderness where the traveller sees no symptoms of human life. Down through the long cliff-pass of Mealanumy, between Buchael-Etive and the Black-Mount, towards the lone House of Dalness that lives in everlasting shadows, went a band of shepherds, trampling their way across a hundred frozen streams. Dalness joined its strength-and then away over the driftbridged chasms toiled that gathering, with their sheep-dogs scouring the loose snows-in the van, Fingal, the Red Reaver, with his head aloft, on the look-out for deer, grimly eyeing the Correi where last he tasted blood. All "plaided in their tartan array," these shepherds laughed at the storm-and hark! you hear the bagpipe play-the music the Highlanders love both in war and in peace.

and though they ken 'twill be a moonless night-for the snow-storm will sweep her out of heaven-up the mountain and down the glen they go, marking where flock and herd