"Well if he would not I should not care so much if he were wounded at all events.'

At this moment our mother came in looking rather grave, as if prepared, as our father would say, to give us a lecture.

She looked at me, and then changing the expression of her face, she began

My dear child-now Magdalene, you know I really love you very much."

And this was her lecture on my improprieties.

Although at that time the least accident in a crowd, the slightest mistake in speech, might occasion the loss of one or two lives as an affair of honour, Mr. Fitzroy Wilton was satisfied. with saying, that the Highlander not being in his sober senses, was beneath the notice of a gentleman; and as he was now a great man, the whole county and the towns-people also were of the same opinion; so that, not only the offender, but the whole of his party, were sent to Coventry; and a paucity of invitations soon showed them the necessity of conciliating "the silly little thing" who caused this feud.

CHAPTER XV.

PERHAPS summer with all its blushing honours is scarcely so delightful to lively, active youth as the joys of a really severe winter. While shivering age, and shuddering poverty, recall the memory of the 'severe winter,' with associations of pain or of suffering, to us it brought only recollections of pleasant times and things.

The beautiful piece of water in the most romantic part of our grounds, was admirably adapted for skating. There was no restriction on its use, and persons who came to skate on it were almost sure of meeting with hospitality at the proprietor's house.

The Highland officers, however, were among the former but not among the latter.

The picturesque costume, and noble figures which some of them displayed there to advantage, were quite in unison with the scenery. One, in particular, who actually was named Fergus Mac Ivor, was quite a living personification of that celebrated character; with the black plumes of his bonnet shading his fine features, he would glide statelily over the white surface, performing with careless ease the most difficult manoeuvres: but much as the plaid and the plumes, and the wearer too, were admired, they only recalled to me the person I had seen pressing the furious Highlander to the wall, and saying in order to cool him, "She is not worth it; silly little thing!"

Day after day they all skated there; and day after day they walked away again without ever being invited to come in and take lunch.

One day, however, I was standing on the edge of the ice speaking to Basil, and remained there after he had skated away: my persecutor of the ball room passed several times up and down, close before me, and as I had been instructed to consider him as a total stranger,

and neither avoid nor recognise him, I obeyed directions, and preserved a perfect unconsciousness, until all at once in some unaccountable manner, down came the Highland hero flat on the ice, with his head precisely on my feet.

At once I was on my knees, raising his head, and calling for help. I believed then that I had a vocation for the work of a sister of charity. A circle of plaids and plumes were soon around us; we were both assisted off the ice; but before I was moved I looked up to see the wondering eyes of Mr. Fitzroy Wilton still fastened upon me, as I held the great red head in my hands.

The wounded officer was of course conveyed to our house; and it was soon asserted that poor Miss St. Pierre had been so dreadfully alarmed by the accident, that she had been conveyed thither also by the rest of the party in a fainting

state.

If I were, however, ill from fear, it was certainly causeless, for the object of my imputed concern was very rapidly quite well, and did ample justice to the substantial lunch that always awaited our skating visitors.

The opportunity was taken for a very humble apology.

The next issue of the county journal related in language worthy of the best penny-a-liner, the accident that had befallen Captain, and set forth in florid terms the kindness with which the sufferer had been received by Mr. St. Pierre and his amiable family.

The interdict was at an end.

A pretended fall, however, led to a real one. Master Wilton, as I used to call him when I had no other means of avenging poor Walter, was envious of the success of the Highlanders; he bought himself a plaid, wore it across his shoulder, and thought he looked to equal advantage on the ice; but he exceeded them in one respect, for he got a real fall and an actual wound, instead of mock ones.

Basil was holding his head in our hall, and our old nurse bathing it, when I came in, and knowing that our mother used sal-volatile for fainting, I ran to the medicine chest, took out a quantity of some pungent stuff, and forced him to swallow it. Tears were flowing on his pallid