Up in Ardmuirland

hill, and the steel-

, in the afternoon s

ow-"Miles

orced apart during life's course; yet, somehow, we have always managed to drift back again into

ife. It appeared that Val, although he had never before breathed a word to me-whatever he may have done to Dad-had thoroughly determined to be a priest if h

my griefs; plans had been made

uestion. You've got to take my place some day, and you mustn't grow up an absolute dunce. Atfield" (an old school-chum of his) "is

access to our own universities as they now are, and we Flemings were Catholics

up with a week or two, in company with Dad, in Paris, whither Val had gone for his philosophy. But such rare meetings became rarer still when Val went off to Rome, and I had

my most ardent hopes, I have been thrown together with

y, except that of being condemned to act the invalid for the rest of my life. For years I was forced by arbitrary decrees to winter in clement climes, as the only means of surviving till the spring; but now that I am fifty I have emancipated myself from such slavery, an

navoidable; for my presence had to be accounted for in Ardmuirland before I could give reminiscences

and thoroughly, as any one who knows Val will be ready to affirm; but his health would not stand the hard work and close confinement of a town, and he was forced against his will to relinquish his post. His attraction had always been toward a studious life, so it came

to sell a good deal of property to make good his losses from unfortunate investments, and

he came to settle his worldly affairs. "I shall therefore leave the bulk of

trip the very coat off his own back, when it was a question of relieving distress. So it is a part

escription now. I am thin; Val is inclined to become chubby. I have a beard and he is necessarily shaven; he needs glasses always, and I only for reading. With these preliminary observations I may say that Val is about five feet six in his shoes, of d

clad, wind-swept height, which rises some seven hundred feet above it. Moreover, as one gazes down, the eye meets many a miniature forest of pine and birch, clothing portions of the lower hills, or nestling in the crevices of the numerous watercourses which

scene of Val's priestly ministrations. This, too, is modest enough. The windows are triple lancets, filled with opaque glass, the altar of stone and marble, but simple in decoration, the tabernacle of brass, and the eas

the "priest's room," in which Val interviews members of his flock. Upstairs are Val's study and my sitting-room, with our res

condition of his help that a new house should form part of the plan. If the old chapel was as unworthy of its purpose as Val's descriptions painted it, the dwelling must have been

sy-faced dumpling of a woman is Penny; an Englishwoman, too, from the Midlands, where the letter H is reserved by many persons of her social standing for the sake of special emphasis only. I find by calculation that she first saw the light at least seventy years ago, but she is reticent upon that subject. All the precise information I have ever extracted from her on the point is that she is not so young as she once was-which is self-e

ce of our family. Her history, as I have learned it from her own lip

o the training of young servants. In appearance Elsie is much like any other Scottish lassie of her age-not strikingly beautiful, nor yet ugly; just pleasant to look upon. Her most conspicuous trait is a smile which appears to be chronic. One cannot help wondering what she looks like on occasions when a smile is out of place-at h

iry, wrinkled, white-haired little man-little now, because stooping a bit under the weight of well-nigh eighty years-who is greatly respected by his neighbors far and near because he has "been sooth." For he was long ago in the ranks of the police of one of our biggest cities, and his former profession, not

erful climate as much as to Willy's attention. As the garden disappears round the corner of the house, its nature changes; vegetables in surprising and intricate variety there flourish chiefly. At the stable-yard it ceases; beyond that a dense pine wood holds its own to the very top of a hill, which ri

r exclaim quite impatiently, having skim

xpect me to wade through pages of twaddle about Scottish peasants

w-creature, and have no desire to thrust my wares upon unwilling hands. But opinions differ, luckily, or this world would be an undesirable hab

trust to you to keep the matter a strict secret from my doctor (McKillagen, M.D., M.R.C.S.), but winter weather at Ardmuirland is n

auld blast, o

e of the worst of our months-say from February to May, off a

a book-maker (I do not use the word in a sporting sense, of course) by the varied characters and histories of our people, and the more than ordi

elf, Ted? You complain of havin

flection. Here is the fruit; pluck it or n