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evening had given him the sleepless night, and the heavy-hearted morning, that most boys would only suffer if they learnt that a favourite pony was to be sold, or that they were forbidden the coveted permission to join a cricket club.

The very work he had chosen for his day's studies bore upon the present subjects of his perturbed meditations. After a few more words to his mother, with regard to Blair's tidings, he went back to the table to fetch the sheets he had been writing so industriously.

"Hearken, I pray you, dearest mother," he said. "I have been copying out some sentences of our National Covenant, the better to impress them upon mine own remembrance. And it seems to me too terrible to think that any Scotsman can be found who will, of his own freedom, break through the great bond it lays on us."

Mistress McCall uttered a deep, low sigh. She and hers had at any rate paid a heavy price sooner than break through it. She followed the sigh with the bestowal of a grave smile of approval upon the young

student.

"Read out your sentences, my son," she said. "Let me hear where your choice has fallen."

As that was just what he was all eagerness to do, Ivie needed no second bidding, but started off at once, the strong words losing nothing of due emphasis as they were uttered by his ringing, rich-toned voice. "I began here, mother, some way in:

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"We Noblemen, Barons, Gentlemen, Burgesses, Ministers, and Commons, under-subscribing, considering divers times before, and especially at this time, the danger of the true reformed religion, of the King's honour, and of the publick peace of the kingdom, by the manifold innovations and evils, generally contained, and particularly mentioned in our late supplications, complaints, and protestations; do hereby profess, and before God, His angels, and the world, solemnly declare, That with our whole. heart we agree, and resolve all the days of our life constantly to adhere unto and to defend the foresaid. true religion, and to labour, by all means lawful, to recover the purity and liberty of the Gospel, as it was established and professed before the aforesaid novations.

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"And therefore, from the knowledge and conscience of our duty to God, to our King and country, without any worldly respect or inducement, so far as human infirmity will suffer, wishing a further measure of the Grace of God for this effect; we promise and swear, by the GREAT NAME OF THE LORD OUR GOD, to continue in the profession and obedience of the foresaid religion; and that we shall defend the same, and resist all these contrary errors and corruptions, according to our vocation, and to the uttermost of that power that God hath put in our hands, all the days of our life.""

Ivie paused and looked up at his companion, feeling greatly gratified at the glow on her cheeks, and the light in her eyes. He put all down to the account of sympathy with what was read, and

was more gratified than if he had guessed how much of the mother's interest was centred in the reader. However, the share given to both led her to say rather quickly:

"Have you written out any more, Ivie dear? Your first extract has been well chosen, to my thinking." Ivie's face brightened gladly at the praise, but the next moment it grew grave again. "I chose it partly because it contains that great, strong, solemn oath, which looks even the more solemn, you remember, mother, from being written in great capitals:

"We promise and swear by the GREAT NAME OF THE LORD OUR GOD."

Again a silence, till little McCall broke it with a low-breathed-"Oh! mother, how can any one dare to go back from that!"

The only answer he received this time was a bend of the head. That vow was verily a solemn one, -one to bind men even to the death, and he who had just read it out with such fervour was the only son of his mother-a widow. And Blair had brought word that there were troubled rumours in the air.

At that minute Mistress McCall's own allegiance to the Covenant was wavering, and from the very circumstance of her boy being so enthusiastic for its upholding. But of course nothing of this even remotely suggested itself to Ivie's mind, and turning to a second of his carefully-written sheets he said:

"Here is another paragraph I have copied down.

It immediately follows the last. That was specially about our religion. This is about honouring the King."

But as he was about to go on with his reading the door of the spence opened, and the faithful family retainer and friend, William Blair, appeared, looking very different as to expression and deportment to when we saw him, some months ago, lying on the heathery brae-side outside the door of his sister-inlaw's hovel.

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"Spence," the private family sitting-room, in contradistinction to that in which the family and servants all assembled together.

CHAPTER V.

A REMINDER FOR CHARLES II.

AD it not been for the devotion of William Blair to his dead master's widow and child, and for the generosity shown to them, at

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first by Blair's father, and of late by himself, it is doubtful whether either of them would have survived the miseries following the laird's death. But had any stranger witnessed the relations between the two parties he must have supposed the favours to have been bestowed on the other side. Not all Mistress McCall's open expressions of gratitude for a home, maintenance, and most watchful service, could prevail upon William Blair to diminish one jot of the almost exaggerated deference he saw fit to pay to her, and to the disinherited young laird.

"Use is second nature," as the saying has it, and certainly of late the lady had grown so accustomed to the man's reverential ways that she had both ceased to argue against them, and to remember very clearly that she had no claim to be treated with such great observance.

But the readings from the National

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