The record-union., 1894-01-27

! lih6 OdN y lOO- w ildI d ClGf0i Olb HlOtSh
your maker was, to be sure," and much
more OF this CHEEKY Sort until the image
was bright and clean and wiped dry with
ferns, when he wrapped it lovingly be-
meath his coat with, warm up bit,
auld beikie!" in a lew minutes more had
passed Joan's door with finger pressed
meaningly to his lips, and entering
Sandy Nichols cottage without knock,
found the old man and woman just he
had left them.
sandy" he began sternly, 81 wish
Lady Mac Tavitt's casket immediately.
The auld wife mOaned and rocked IN
greater emotion than before, but Sandy
merely glared and doggedly answered
back, II hal na ain kist herei"
SANDY, this old friend of yours who
has come with me says he knows you
havev
With this the imperturbable artist held
the image squarely before the old wretch's
eyes. For a moment they seemed start
ing from their sockets, and he put his
Shrivelled hands hutteringly before them
to shut the unearthly challenger from
view. Then he slid limp down the cup
board frame, as its doors flew open, and
tell IN pitiable heap upon the floor,
while the auld wife, screaming "Guld
Laird! Guid Laird!-if ye'd hadden mair
Screeptur in your heart, Sandy, and less
on your tongue, thees awsome curse
would niver ha' coom!" tottered across
the room, stumbled over her horror
/; stricken husband, and brought to Hugh
| Rltchie-not one but two caskets of curl
Gus oriental design.
"Quick, quick, ,joan!' She was at the
door in an instant. 'Send Davy to the
| back door. Let no one pass in or out.
Take these, Joan, and if you love Hugh
Ritchie, never let them out Of your hands.
! By all the Graces! l believe Lady Mac
Tavitt has got another wigW And with
| this he ran like greyhound to the lodge.
| The terror OF the couple pierced Joan's
! heart Woefully, and her little vigil there
was an age in which her own and Hughs
fate seemed hid in what her honest hands
! Loyalty clenched. Her heart beat wildly
as she heard a trap from the lodge come
laundering across the bridge OF Fasnak yle
and up to the cottage door.
There she is, your ladyship. There
she is-the finest woman in the North!
| But for Joan there, we never could have
found it," exclaimed the artist radiantly,
as the head-plaided and bonneted Lady
! Mac Tavitt, reaching the ground at a
bound, grabbed the first casket she saw
in Joan's hands, snapped the spring
viciously, tossed her plaid and bonnet
from her, and, clutching the precious
wig-as big as Lord Chancellor's, with
curls that fell to her waist, and red as the
upon her glistenlng pate. This done she
sank back in chair with groan of lib
! Grafton and relief, and at once vigorously
set about taking snuff. At last, with
closed eyes, she murmured:
'Gie her sheelin', Hugh. Gle her a
shee,in'p'
In amazemenU he took the other casket
from the flushed girls hands. 1t re-
quired but a moment to learn It's history
from the doddering auld wife now; its
! theft by Sandy at night from the basket
! containing the mite Of a babe left at Davy
| Saunders cottage twenty years before;
the fear Of using the Bank OF England
notes of large denomination which it still
| contained intact; Sandy's hatred of those
| he had WrOnged and his affrighted yes
terday's theft of the casket's mate in
sudden superstitious fear lest the first had
! been bewitched from his cupboard, but
even Hugh Ritchie's hand trem bled as he
read the little yellow scrawl among the
bank notes, with Lady Barlstold's crest
upon it, which told of the peasant lady,
| mothers misery, despair and unuttera-
bic longing that her babe might know
the tender highland home-nest from
which she had flown. which told him
also that Joan beside him there had been
a child of noble birth, the whole. while
Lady Mac Tavitt calmly rocked in the
auld wife's chair, pleasantly nodding her
head in the bland delirium of wig recov-
cry and snuff!
''Do you know, Lady Mac Tavitt," be-
gan the artist falteringly, that the Mac
Tavitt has been found?"
She opened her eyes with snap, took
another pinch of snuff, closed her eyes
again. adjusted her wig and rocked on
benignly.
Lady Mac Tavitt, will you not under
stand that here-here in this room-there
is standing before you the daughter of
Lord Barlsfold, your own grand niece,
the Duchess OF Fytie and Yathan?"
Lady Mac Tavitt gave a little snort.
Then she arose. She clutched her bonnet,
her casket and her plaid, scrambled back
into the trap, and, just as she was being
driven rapidly away, chopped out this
single command to the astonished couple:
Hugh Ritchie, gle her yourself an ha'
din!
And thus it came that Davy Saunders
sang re-Cheathaich" unmolested in
his cottage garden to the end of his days,
and the lowly and the great for once came
| blessedly together through so simple a
thing as the loss of Lady Mac Tavitt's
wig.