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pardon for his friend was so far complied with, that Colonel Pemberton contented himself with dismissing the favoured servant, who had set so flagrant an example of dishonesty to the labourers under his charge.

"Remember," said his master, impressively, when paying the wages due to him and discharging him from his service, "Remember I have abstained from punishing you at the earnest solicitations of this child; but that if you ever again come before me for any act of theft or fraud, the chastisement will be exemplary." Vinna listened in silent submission, kissed the skirt of Willy's garment, and departed.

For a while the boy missed his kind and pleasant face in the cinnamon plantations and about the home-grounds; but the griefs of childhood are enviably brief, and he had nearly forgotten his old playfellow, when he was thrown unexpectedly in his way, many months afterwards, in a visit paid by hinself and his father, attended by Gatura, to the pearl-fishery at Condatchy.

A gay and pleasant scene was this pearlfishery. Thousands of persons, of all colours and nations, in the picturesque costumes of the East, from the rich travelling merchants who supply the great jewellers of our European cities, to the poorest of the Cinglese women and children, who hover around the sieves, and pore for days over the heaps of sand which have been thrown aside, in hopes of lighting upon the smallest seedling pearl, crowd the streets of the temporary town (at other times a mere fishing village,) washing, sifting, boring, drilling, squabbling, and bargaining, in every variety of dialect and jargon; all intent upon the beautiful luxury destined to add a costlier splendour to the monarch's crown, or a rarer charm to the brow of beauty.

berton also advanced to admire the treasure, attended by Gatura, who had accompanied them to Condatchy; and a little crowd of merchants and natives gathered round the place, enlarging upon its merits, marvelling at Vinna's good fortune, or rather the extraordinary luck of his employer, and wondering how, by any degree of carelessness, a pearl of such magnitude could have escaped from the sieves.

Whilst these assistants, in the heat of their discussion, stood divided into separate groups, and Colonel Pemberton, at Willy's entreaty," was speaking with a grave and measured kindness to Vinna, his employer and the agent of the King of Candy having concluded their bargain, returned for the pearl. They applied to Vinna, who motioned to the shawl which he had deposited on the top of a high covered basket close behind him. The basket was there, and the shawl, but the pearl was gone! The consternation was general. Vinna wrung his hands in agony; the buyer and seller of the precious commodity were in equal dismay. Every man looked suspiciously on his fellow. Some disclaimed; some accused. Gatura, who had stood nearest to the basket upon which the valuable jewel had been so unhappily left, insisted so vehemently upon being searched, that, rather to pacify him and rid themselves of his clamour, than from any positive mistrust, his dress and person were, as he desired, subjected to a very rigorous examination; nothing, of course, being found that could implicate him in any way in the delinquency.

In the meantime, the less successful adventurers, who had before been loud in the expression of their astonishment that such a pearl could be found in such a manner, began to gather round Colonel Pemberton, to examine into the character which Vinna, whom they understood, from what had passed between them, to have been heretofore employed by him, had borne while in his service. The agent of the King of Candy, the purchaser of the pearl, and the speculator who had sold it, also approached with the same view. Willy, who, child as he was, saw the turn that matters were about to take, seized the opportunity to steal towards his friend.

Willy was delighted; all the more delighted that he had met his old friend Vinna, and that Vinna had been singularly prosperous. A speculating merchant had not only engaged divers on his own account, but had employed persons to examine the sand that had been thrown by after passing, or being supposed to pass, through the sieves. Vinna had been fortunate enough to discover, in a portion which must have been spilled before being "Go, Vinna! go!" said Willy; and, with subjected to that process, a pear-shaped pearl a sudden start, and a momentary pause, Vinna of such size and beauty, as had not been found obeyed the injunction. He disappeared among off the coast of Ceylon within the memory of the crowd; and, by the time that the questions the oldest trader connected with the fishery. that those interested had extracted from ColoAn agent of the King of Candy, specially nel Pemberton the cause of his dismissal, and dispatched by his royal master for the purpose that two or three of the most determined callof obtaining such a jewel, to gratify a fancy ed out to arrest him, he had made such good expressed by his favourite wife, who wanted use of his time, as completely to baffle every such a one to complete a set of ornaments, effort of his pursuers; his flight, whilst it was at that moment treating for it with his saved him from almost inevitable punishment, employer. Vinna ran to procure it to show to producing upon every body, except Willy, the boy, and placed it on a crimson shawl to who did battle manfully in his behalf, the display the shape and colour to the best ad- most complete conviction of his guilt. It vantage. At Willy's entreaty, Colonel Pem-seemed as certain that he had stolen the pearl,

-perhaps that he had twice stolen it,—as that he had stolen the oil of cinnamon. No one believed in the possibility of his innocence, except our friend Willy.

The boy and his father returned to Negumbo; and, in a little while, the colonel was called away on service; and Mrs. Pemberton being in delicate health, Willy was left much to the care of Gatura, who spared no pains in his endeavour to win the favour of the lively and spirited boy. He constructed a pad, on which to take him before him on a blood horse, belonging to the colonel, and carried him every day upon some excursion to the cocoa groves (or topes,) or the dreary forests which surrounded their habitation. One day he took him to see the manner in which wild elephants are caught; and Willy was delighted with the sagacity and affection displayed by one of the tame ones, who, apparently recognising an old companion in the largest of those that had been ensnared, actually opened the fastenings of the gate for the release of his friend;thus showing, although enslaved himself, his sens of the value of freedom. Willy was enchanted; and, on Gatura's dwelling upon the grandeur and interest of a buffalo hunt, never ceased importuning the Malay to afford him that gratification.

and the panthers, of this forest. Down with you, sir! Do not cling around me in this manner! Let go my sash, or I will cut away those little hands! What noise is that? Off with you, I say!"

And, frightened at some real or imaginary noise, Gatura dashed the struggling child to the earth and rode rapidly away, leaving, in the boy's hands, the shawl sash, by which he had hung so tightly, and which had been folded, after the oriental fashion, round the waist of the Malay. A small packet dropped from it-it was the lost pearl!

Hungry and bewildered as he was, the stouthearted boy lost neither his courage nor his presence of mind. He pocketed the precious jewel, plucked the unripe fruits to appease the cravings of appetite, and tried, with all his might, to retrace the way by which he had come, and to turn back to his home; but, far beyond his own knowledge, he only plunged deeper and deeper into the forest. He avoided, however, with remarkable boldness and sagacity, the frequent dangers from snakes and wild animals, took refuge under a talipot-tree from a storm, which sent the shrieking flormouse to the same friendly shelter; and at night, remembering that the Cinglese sometimes constructed their habitations for security on the branches of trees, he climbed the tall trunk of the cocoa to sleep.

One fine morning, accordingly, they set forth professedly to witness this remarkable spectacle. The high-bred steed carried them rapidly What was the agony of the bereaved mothrough the cocoa tope, into the very depth of ther during that long and solitary night! Gathe forest. No sign appeared of the hunters; tura had not returned, and, wholly unsuspibut, pleased with the beauty of the scenery, cious of his treachery, she imagined that some the golden rays of the sun darting through the fatal accident had happened to him and to his shaddock and the tamarind, and resting on the charge. Messenger after messenger did she beautiful fruit of the jamboe, and amused by despatch in every direction; Colonel Pemberthe variety of bright-coloured birds and gor-ton was recalled; and every means taken that' geous butterflies, the boy took no note of the the most anxious affection could dictate, to distance. At last, as the day advanced, the recover the missing child. claims of hunger began to be felt, and he intimated to Gatura his desire to return home.. "Home!" said the Malay, in the low accent of bitter hate; "you never shall return. Do you remember the day-you, child as you are, may forget; but, on my memory that day is burnt in characters of fire-when for striking this horse, ay, this very horse, as Colonel Pemberton, my master, your father, was pleased to think over hard, he snatched the whip from my hand, and struck me, ay, lashed me with it, as if I had been a beast? I grasped the crease in my bosom; but that would have been a brief and common vengeance. I have waited for such revenge as may endure; and now my hour is come. You, too, young sir! you were pleased to read out of some story-book, to your mother, that pearls might be hidden in the mouth; that stripping the dress, and searching the person, was no security against a skilful thief! Home you shall never come to tell your father that tale, unless, indeed, you can win your way through the beasts and reptiles, the snakes

He, meanwhile, wandered on, subsisting on wild fruits by day, and sleeping in trees by night, until he had nearly reached the boundaries of Candy. He, too, poor child, was heart-sick and home-sick. The high courage which he inherited from his father, roused at the approach of danger; but at other moments, foot-sore, weary, bruised by falls, and torn by bushes, his spirits flagged, and his strength was exhausted. One day, as he was passing by some brush-wood, which half concealed the entrance to a low cavern, a furious buffalo came bellowing up a track in the forest, and, pausing for an instant, lowered his head to attack the child. Another moment, and Willy would have been gored by his horns, or tossed into the air; but a man rushed from the cavern, and, seizing the child with one arm, with the other flung a piece of cloth (part of his own garments) over the head of the buffalo, blinding him, and entangling his horns, so that the boy and his preserver had time to retreat into the cave, the entrance to which was too low to admit the enraged animal.

Willy was saved; and, turning to thank the friend to whose boldness and address he owed his life, he burst into tears of delight, clapped his little hands together, and shouted, "Vinna! dear, dear Vinna!"

Three days after this, Vinna, bending in respectful salutation, with his arms folded upon his bosom, stood in the presence of the beautiful wife of the Candian king. She listened to his little story, and listened pityingly, for she was a woman and a mother. She promised, with the grace of conscious power, and nobly did she redeem her promise, to redress all Vinna's grievances, whether as regarded the oil of cinnamon, which she justly suspected Gatura to have stolen, or the pearl; and with regard to that pearl of pearls, the noble boy Willy, she made it her first business, her first pleasure, to send him home to his distracted parents, laden with presents, and accompanied by his brave preserver, the faithful Cinglese.

SCOTLAND.

SIR ALLAN AND HIS DOG.

"Therefore his age was as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly."

SHAKSPEARE.

Her fair companion, the high-born and graceful Jessy Stewart, who, startled, as Agnes had truly said, at the sudden sound of Allan Macdonald's gun, had been standing in some dismay behind her friend, now that the shock was passed, advanced smilingly, and' found a seat upon the bank beside her.

"How fond you are, Agnes, of that huge dog! What would the exquisites who hovered round you in London and in Paris say, if they saw you in full dress, too, not as I am, snooded and plaided like a Highland lassie, with your jewelled hand resting upon that shaggy head, and his long, rough body reclining upon the satin skirt! What would they say to that, my dainty leddy,' as old Annot is wont to call you?"

"And what matters what they say or think, Jessy ?" responded the warm-hearted maiden, kindling into a dignity of youthful beauty and unconscious stateliness, pure, delicate, and graceful as the attitude of a swan upon the mountain or lake, or the station of a doe amongst her native glens. "What care I for the exquisites of Paris or of London? Not half as much as for the mountain posy which you have been collecting- the harebell, and the heather-sprig, and our own elegant and abundant Scottish rose. What is the worth of a 'wilderness of' such 'monkeys,' compared with that of our noble, faithful Oscar? What would be the amount of their services in a whole century, measured with those which he has rendered to us? Why, did you never hear," continued Agnes, observing the sur"No, Oscar! no; your young master is prised look with which her friend regarded her deer-stalking to-day. Don't you hear the gun, evident excitement; "Did you never hear of which has startled Jessy so wofully? He poor Oscar's exploits in the hard winter, five does not want you just now, Oscar. His view, years back? No; you were in Germany at before firing that startling gun, which, wo is the time: and it was before Allan's attachme! will have more than frightened the poor, ment and your return of affection (nay, Jessy, pretty deer; for Allan is such a shot, that he a princess would have no cause to blush for seldom misses his aim,-his view, before he loving such a man as my brother;) it was befrightened Jessy, and awakened the echoes fore this affiance, so gratifying to us all, had and brought down the red deer with that sud-given you a daughter's interest in the affairs den shot, was to creep towards them quietly and stealthily. He does not want the good hound, Oscar, to-day! Oscar must stay with his mistress." And as the lovely Agnes Macdonald spoke coaxingly these coaxing words, her small, fair hand thrown around Oscar's "You know the pride and delight of our neck, as he stood beside her, the noble animal family, my little sister, Jean; but you did not looked up in her face with his bright intelli- know the beloved and venerable relative, my gent eyes, delighting in the sweetness of the dear and excellent grandfather, of whom she voice, comprehending, or seeming to com- was, from the moment she could totter across prehend, the meaning of the words, and ac- the room, climb into his lap, and hang pratquiescing most contentedly in her decision. tling round his neck, the prime pet and faThere was, certainly, no great hardship in vourite. He doted upon the sturdy, hardy, merstanding at the side of Agnes Macdonald, the ry little girl, with her joyous smile, and her joybeautiful and the kind; and with looks that ous temper, so fearless, open, frank, and kind; spoke, as plainly as looks could speak, his af- and she, in her turn, idolised the fine, cheerfection and his gratitude, her honest and faith-ful, benevolent old man, her most alert playful favourite (somewhat of the largest and roughest for a lady's pet,) lay down in calm and quiet happiness at her feet.

of our house. If you are not afraid of a long story, I will tell you why it is that, from the oldest to the youngest, we all consider Oscar, not merely as a noble animal, but as a benefactor and a friend.

mate, and most indulgent friend! Oh! how they loved each other! And what a picture it was to see them together! He, at nearly

good hound, Oscar, bounding on before them. He had an innocent pride in dropping in with Jeanie in his hand at houses at a considerable distance, particularly at the residences of his daughters and grandchildren (for his daughters, older than my father, an only son, and early married, had scattered his descendants over the country), and replying, with a chuckling glee, when questioned about horses and ser vants, that he had walked; that he left such effeminacies as coaches and flunkies to those who needed them, and was ready to dance a should go hard but he would tire her down: and Jeanie hersel' will keep it up with any lad of her inches; won't you, Jeanie?' and the vaunt would end by the good old man tossing Jeanie upon his shoulder, and cutting the Highland fling to his own music. This was his delight: a ball was nothing without his presence. If you had but seen the nod and the wink, the fulness of his glee, the overflow of his good-humour, his archness in suspecting, and sagacity in detecting which lad and lassie would like to come together for the dance; ay, and sometimes for longer than the dance! How he would reconcile old feuds, and cement new friendships; ay, and how he would use the influence of age, and character, and property, even to the very stretch of his

eighty, still upright, robust and vigorous in form, with a regular, oval countenance, high, noble features, hazel eyes, bright and keen as a falcon's, a mouth of feminine sweetness, a fine open forehead, a magnificent bald head, and long curling hair, as white as the snow on Ben Nevis, contrasting with his clear, ruddy complexion, the very hue of a ripe peach. Oh, what a sight it was to see that beautiful old man, so full of health, and life, and glee, and kindliness, tossing about that rosy, laughing child with the activity of youth! never weary of humouring her pretty fancies, and even go-reel with the youngest lassie present; and it ing beyond her in innocent mirth, and fun, and frolic. How Jeanie loved him! How we all loved him, the dear and venerable man! so generous and frank, so open-hearted and guileless himself, so unsuspicious of guile in others; so full of honourable thoughts and disinterested and affectionate feelings! How proud we all were of a relative, whose cheerful and venerable age accorded so well with his virtuous and active youth! The Southrons, estimating little except the conventional benefits of wealth or station, are apt to sneer at our pride of ancestry; and perhaps we may a little overvalue that mere string of names, that long roll of parchment, a pedigree; but a progenitor like Sir Allan Macdonald, or as he preferred to be called, Kilburnie,-a living example of all that is true, and just, and honour-interest, to smooth difficulties, and turn dim able, and kind, cannot be too highly appreciated. His family, his clansmen, his very countrymen, were proud of the good old man, whose sweet and genial temperament diffused gaiety and happiness around him. He was a blessing to the whole country. You will be a happy woman, Jessy, if my dear brother, the heir of his estates and his name, should (as Heaven grant he may) fulfil the promise of his youth, and inherit also the frank and winning virtues to which his grandfather owed his extensive and remarkable popularity.

"Sir Allan being a widower, and my mother a widow, she and her three children, Allan, Jeanie, and myself, lived with him at Kilburnie; Jeanie, younger than either of us by ten years, and a posthumous child, being, as I have said, his companion; whilst Oscar, then in his prime, whom my grandfather, still a keen sportsman, valued above all greyhounds for his speed (if my venerable kinsman, in his universal candour and charity, had a prejudice, it was against the sleek, high-bred, fine-limbed dogs, which form the pride of the southern courser, and Oscar had won a cup from a round dozen of competitors from Newmarket, brought on purpose to oppose him), and whom Jeanie delighted in for his gamesomeness, was the constant attendant of their long rambles. In spring, summer, autumn, and winter, in every season, and in all weathers, would the active old man sally forth with the hardy little girl, sometimes holding him by the hand, or when weary carried in his arms, and the

and distant wishes into present realities! Many a hopeful youth has owed his prosperity, many a gentle maiden her happiness, to the unwearied benevolence of the kind and merry Sir Allan.

"One Christmas he went to Glenmore, accompanied, as usual, by Jeanie and Oscar, to keep the birth-day of his favourite daughter, Lady Macleod. My brother was detained at home by a slight indisposition; and the weather was so severe, that my mother, always delicate, was afraid to venture, I myself being | too young for parties of any kind. Sir Allan had fixed to return on New Year's Eve, the succeeding day being always one of high festivity at Kilburnie, the servants and neighbours dining in the great hall, and the whole castle being alive with feasting and jollity. It was an occasion on which we felt that he would be very unwilling to absent himself, and yet the day fixed for his return was so tremendous, that we took for granted Lady Macleod would detain her honoured guest at Glenmore. Snow had fallen during the whole of the preceding night, accompanied by a drifting wind, so that to send carriages and horses was impracticable; every vestige of the road, a wild mountain-track, at the best, was impassable, or my brother would have gone under pretence of fetching Jeanie; for we all knew well, that the only shade that ever crossed the brightness of our dear grandfather's countenance, was occasioned by his suspicion of being taken care of,-an affront which the