their grain to another mill. Now such another mill, erected on the lands of a lay-baron, lay within a tempting and convenient distance of Glendearg; and the Miller was so obliging, and his charges so moderate, that it required Hob Miller's utmost vigilance to prevent evasions of his right of monopoly.

The most effectual means he could devise was this shew of good fellowship and neighbourly friendship,-under colour of which he made his annual cruise through the barony-numbered every corn-stack, and computed its contents by the boll, so that he could give a shrewd hint afterwards whether or not the grist came to the right mill.

Dame Elspeth, like her compeers, was obliged to take these domiciliary visits in the sense of politeness; but in her case they had not occurred since her husband's death, probably because the Tower of Glendearg was distant, and there was but a trifling quantity of arable or infield land attached to it. This year there had been, upon some speculation of old Martin's, several bolls sown in the outfield, which, the season being fine, had ripened remarkably well. Perhaps this circumstance occasioned the honest Miller's including Glendearg, on this occasion, in his annual round.

Dame Glendinning received with pleasure a visit which she used formerly only to endure with patience; and she had changed her view of the

matter chiefly, if not entirely, because Hob had brought with him his daughter Mysie, of whose features she could give so slight an account, but whose dress she had described so accurately to the SubPrior.

Hitherto this girl had been an object of very trifling consideration in the eyes of the good widow; but the Sub-Prior's particular and somewhat mysterious inquiries had set her brains to work on the subject of Mysie of the Mill; and she had here asked a broad question, and there she had thrown out an inuendo, and there again she had gradually led on to a conversation on the subject of poor Mysie. And from all inquiries and investigations she had collected, that Mysie was a dark-eyed laughter-loving wench, with cherrycheeks, and a skin as white as her father's finest bolted flour, out of which was made the Abbot's own wastel-bread. For her temper, she sung and laughed from morning to night; and for her fortune, a material article, besides that which the Miller might have amassed by means of his proverbial golden thumb, Mysie was to inherit a good handsome lump of land, with a prospect of the mill and mill-acres descending to her husband on an easy lease, if a fair word were spoken in season to the Abbot, aud to the Prior, and to the Sub-Prior, and to the Sacristan, and so forth.

By turning and again turning these advantages

over in her own mind, Elspeth at length came to be of opinion, that the only way to save her son Halbert from a life of "spur, spear, and snafle," as they called that of the border-riders, from the dint of a cloth-yard shaft, or the loop of an inch-cord, was, that he should marry and settle, and that Mysie Happer should be his destined bride.

As if to her wish, Hob Miller arrived on his strong-built mare, bearing on a pillion behind him the lovely Mysie, with cheeks like a peony-rose, (if Dame Glendinning had ever seen one,) spirits all afloat with rustic coquetry, and a profusion of hair as black as ebony. The beau-ideal which Dame Glendinning had been bodying forth in her imagination, became unexpectedly realized in the buxom form of Mysie Happer, whom, in the course of half an hour, she settled upon as the maiden who was to fix the restless and untutored Halbert. True, Mysie, as the dame soon saw, was like to love dancing round a may-pole as well as managing a domestic establishment, and Halbert was like to break more heads than he would grind stacks of corn. But then a miller should always be of manly make, and has been described so since the days of Chaucer and James I.* Indeed to be able to outdo and

The verse we have chosen for a motto, is from a poem imimputed to James I. of Scotland. As for the Miller who figures among the Canterbury pilgrims, besides his sword and

bully the whole Sucken, (once more we use this barbarous phrase,) in all athletic exercises, was one way to render easy the collection of dues which men would have disputed with a less formidable champion. Then, as to the deficiencies of the miller's wife, the dame was of opinion that they might be supplied by the activity of the miller's mother. "I will keep house for the young folks myself, for the tower is grown very lonely," thought Dame Glendinning," and to live near the kirk will be mair comfortable in my auld age-and then Edward may agree with his brother about the feu, more especially as he is a favourite with the Sub-Prior, and then he may live in the auld tower like his worthy father before him—and wha kens but Mary Avenel, high-blood as she is, may e'en draw in her stool to the chimney-nook, and sit down here for good and a' ?-It's true she has no tocher, but the like of her for beauty and sense ne'er

buckler, he boasted other attributes, all of which, but especially the last, shew that he relied more on the strength of the outside than that of the inside of his scull.

The miller was a stout carl for the nones,
Full big he was of brawn, and eke of bones;
That proved well, for whersoe'er he cam,
At wrastling he wold bear away the ram;
He was short-shoulder'd, broad, a thick gnar.
There n'as no door that he n'old heave of bar.
Or break it at a running with his head, &c.

crossed my een; and I have kenn'd every wench in the Halidome of St Mary's-ay, and their mothers that bore them-ay, she is a sweet and a lovely creature as ever tied snood over brown hair -ay, and then, though her uncle keeps her out of her ain for the present time, yet it is to be thought the grey-goose-shaft will find a hole in his coat of proof, as, God help us! it has done in many a better man's-And, moreover, if they should stand on their pedigree and gentle race, Edward might say to them, that is to her gentle kith and kin, 'whilk o' ye was her best friend when she came down the glen to Glendearg in a misty evening, on a beast mair like a cuddie than aught else?'—And if they tax him with churl's blood, Edward might say, that, forbye the old proverb, how

Gentle deed

Makes gentle bleid;

yet, moreover, there comes no churl's blood from Glendinning or Brydone, for, says Edward_”

The hoarse voice of the Miller at this moment recalled the dame from her reverie, and compelled her to remember that if she meant to realize her airy castle, she must begin by laying the foundation in civility to her guest and his daughter, whom she was at that moment most strangely neglecting, though her whole plan turned on conciliating their favour and good opinion, and that, in fact, while