Pounteney really was, was a matter of much controversy and discussion. Some said that he was a great gentleman, and others thought that, from various symptoms, he was not a very great gentleman; some went so far as to say he was a lord or a prince, while others maintained that he was only a simple esquire, although he might yet be turned into a belted knight, or baronet, like Sin Michael who lived in the neighbourhood, which the king coula make him, any day he chose, by knocking him down with a sword; for it was part of the king's business to make knights and lords, and this was the way he did it. But as the fisher people, among whom Kate had been reared, did not understand what a knight meant, nor any thing of these high matters; and from the rising ambition of fisher girls, to get gentlemen as well as Kate, were much occupied in discussions, about the quality of her and her husband; her elder sister, Flora, was constantly appealed to, and drawn out wherever she went, upon this interesting subject.

Nothing, therefore, could be talked of wherever Flora M'Leod went, but about "my sister Kate;" and she was quite in request every where, because she could talk of the romantic history and happy fortune of her lucky sister. Mrs Pounteney's house in London, therefore, Mrs Pounteney's grand husband, and Mrs Pounteney's coach, excited the admiration and the discontent of all the fishermen's daughters, for many miles round this romantic sea coast and these quiet cottages under the hills, where the simple people lived upon their fish and did not know that they were happy. Many a long summer's day, as the girls sat working their nets on a knoll towards the sea, the sun that shone warm upon their indolent limbs on the grass, and the breeze that blew from the Firth, or swept round from the flowery woods of Ardgowan, seemed less grateful and delicious, from their discontented imaginings about the fortune of Mrs Pounteney; and many a sweet and wholesome supper of fresh boiled fish was made to lose its former relish, or was even embittered by obtrusive discourse about the fine wines and the gilded grandeur of "my sister Kate." Even the fisher lads in the neighbourhood, fine fearless youths, found a total alteration in their sweethearts; their discourse was not relished, their persons were almost despised; and there was now no happiness found for a fisherman's daughter, but what was at least to approach to the state of grandeur and felicity so fortunately obtained by "my sister Kate."

The minds of Kate's family were so carried by her great fortune, that vague wishes and discontented repinings followed their con.. stant meditations upon her lucky lot. Flora had found herself above marrying a fisherman; and a young fellow, called Bryce

Cameron, who had long waited for her, and whose brother, Allan, was once a sweetheart of Kate's herself, being long ago discarded; and she not perceiving any chances of a gentleman making his appearance to take Bryce's place, became melancholy and thoughtful; she began to fear that she was to have nobody, and her thoughts ran constantly after London and Mrs Pounteney. With these anxious wishes, vague hopes began to mix of some lucky turn to her own fortune, if she were only in the way of getting to be a lady; and at length she formed the high wish, and even the adventurous resolve, of going all the way to London, just to get one peep at her sister's happiness.

When this ambition seized Flora M'Leod, she let the old people have no rest, nor did she spare any exertion to get the means of making her proposed pilgrimage to London. In the course of a fortnight from its first serious suggestion, she, with a gold guinea in her pocket, and two one pound notes of the Greenock bank, besides other coins and valuables, and even a little old fashioned Highland brooch, with which the quondam lover of her sister, Allan Cameron, had the temerity to intrust to her, to be specially returned into the hands of the great lady when she should see her, besides a hundred other charges and remembrances from the neighbours, she set off one dewy morning in summer, carrying her shoes and stockings in her hand, to make her way to London, to get a sight of every thing great, and particularly of her happy sister Kate.

Many a weary mile did Flora M'Leod walk, and ride, and sail, through unknown places, and in what she called foreign parts; for strange things and people met her eye, and long dull regions of country passed her like a rapid vision, as she was wheeled towards the great capital and proper centre of England. After travelling to a distance that was to her perfectly amazing, she was set down in London, and inquired her way, in the best English she could command, into one of those long brick streets, of dark and dull gentility, to which she was directed; and after much trouble and some expense, at length found the door of her sister's house. She stood awhile considering, on the steps of the mansion, and felt a sort of fear of lifting the big iron knocker that seemed to grin down upon her; for she was not in the habit of knocking at great folk's doors, and almost trembled lest somebody from within would frown her into nothing, even by their high and lofty looks.

And yet she thought the house was not so dreadfully grand after all:-not at all such as she had imagined, for she had passed houses much bigger and grander than this great gentleman's; it was not even the largest in its own street, and looked dull and dingy, and

ance.

shut up with blinds and rails, having a sort of melancholy appearAt least it was not at all equal, she thought, to many of the white stone villas by the Firth of Clyde, that sat so proudly on the hill face, opposite the sea, near her father's cottage, with their doors wide open to receive the summer air or welcome the passing traveller, and their windows gleaming in the evening sunshine, before it dipped behind the big mountains of Argyleshire.

It was strange that reflections about home, and so enhancing of its value, should pass through her mind at the very door where lived her envied sister in London! but she must not linger, but see what was inside. She lifted up the iron knocker, and as it fell the very clang of it, and its echo inside, smote upon her heart with a sensation of strange apprehension. A powdered man opened it, and stared at her with an inquisitive impertinent look, then saucily asked what she wanted. Flora courtesied low to the servant from perfect terror, saying she wanted to see Mrs Pounteney.

"And what can you want with Mrs Pounteney, young woman, I should like to know?" said the fellow; for Flora neither looked like a milliner's woman, nor any other sort of useful person likely to be wanted by a lady.

Flora had laid various pretty plans in her own mind, about taking her sister by surprise, and seeing how she would look at her before she spoke, and so forth; at least she had resolved not to affront her, by making herself known as her sister before the servants; but the man looked at her with such suspicion, and spoke so inso lent, that she absolutely began to fear, from the interrogations of this fellow, that she would be refused admittance to her own sister, and was forced to explain and reveal herself, before the outer door was fully opened to her. At length she was conducted, on tiptoe, along a passage, and then up stairs, until she was placed in a little back dressing-room. The servant then went into the drawingroom, where sat two ladies at opposite sides of the apartment, there to announce Flora's message.

On a sofa, near the window, sat a neat youthful figure, extremely elegantly formed, but petite, with a face that need not be described, further than the features were small and pretty, and that, as a whole, it was rich in the nameless expression of simple beauty. Her dress could not have been plainer, to be of silk of the best sort; but the languid discontent, if not melancholy, with which the female, yet quite in youth, gazed towards the window, or bent over a little silk netting with which she carelessly employed herself, seemed to any observer strange and unnatural at her time of life. At a table near the fire was seated a woman, almost the perfect contrast to this interesting figure, in the person of Mr Pounteney's eldest sister, a

hard-faced, business-like person, who with pen and ink before her, seemed busy among a parcel of household accounts, and the characteristic accompaniment of a bunch of keys occasionally rattling at her elbow.

The servant approached, as if fearful of being noticed by "the old one," as he was accustomed to call Miss Pounteney, and in a half whisper, intimated to the little figure, that a female wanted to see her.

"Eh! what!-what is it you say, John?" cried the lady among the papers, noticing this manœuvre of the servant.

"Nothing, Madam; it is a person that wants my lady." "Your lady, sirrah! it must be me!-Eh! what!"

"No madam; she wants to see Mrs Pounteney particularly." “Ah, John!" said the little lady on the sofa; "just refer her to Miss Pounteney. There is nobody can want me."

"Wants to see Mrs Pounteney particularly!" resumed the sisterin-law: "how dare you bring in such a message, sirrah? Mrs Pounteney particularly, indeed! who is she, sirrah! Who comes here with such a message while I am in the house?"

You must be mistaken, John," said the little lady sighing, who was once the lively Kate M'Leod of the fishing cottage in Scotland; "just let Miss Pounteney speak to her. You need not

come to me."

“No, madam," said the servant, addressing Miss Pounteney, the natural pertness of his situation now returning to overcome his dread of the old one! "This young person wants to see my mistress directly, and I have put her into her dressing-room: pray ma'am, go," he added, respectfully, to the listless Kate.

"Do you come here to give your orders, sirrah ?" exclaimed Miss Pounteney, rising like a fury, and kicking the footstool half way across the room, "and to put strange people of your own accord into any dressing-room in this house! and to talk of your mistress, and wanting to speak to her directly, and privately, while I am here! I wonder what sister Becky would say, or Mr Pounteney, if he were at home?"

The "old one's" wrath being now aroused, she next diverged into a tirade of abuse of John, for various crimes and misdemeanours, with which her examination of the documents before her furnished matter of accusation against him, on household matters, and into which she contrived to include the trembling little victim on the sofa. While she was at the height of this, her sister Becky entered the room; and, as usual, helped up the brawl, or rather added fuel to the angry storm with which she raged against the man, who listened with the true sneer of a lacquey, made insolent

by unlady-like abuse; and also against the unoffending and melancholy Kate, who bore it all with a look of hopeless resignation.

John, however, coxcomb as he sometimes was, had too much natural gallantry not to feel strongly on the part of his oppressed mistress; and too much common sense not to see the misery of a house divided against itself; besides, he hated his two real mistreses as much as he loved the interesting stranger, who ought to have been such. Without taking notice, therefore, of all the accusations and abuse thrown upon him, he stepped up again to the little figure on the sofa, and begged of her to see the young person who waited for her.

"I'll have no whispering here!" exclaimed Miss Pounteney, coming forward in wrath,-"What is the meaning of all this, Kate?-who is this person in your dressing-room?-I insist upon knowing: I shall let my brother know all about this secrecy!"

"Who is it, John? Do just bring her here, and put an end to this!" said Kate imploringly, to the man.

66

Madam," said John at last to his trembling mistress," it is your sister!"

66

Who, John?" cried Kate, starting to her feet; "my sister Flora, my own sister, from Clyde side-speak, John, are ye

sure ?"

"Yes, madam, your sister from Scotland."

66

Oh, where is she, where is she? let me go."

'No, no; you must be mistaken, John ;" said the lady with the keys, stepping forward to interrupt the anxious Kate; "John, this is all a mistake," she added, smoothly; "Mrs Pounteney has no sister! John, you may leave the room :" and she gave a determined look to the other sister, who stood astonished.

The moment the servant left the room, Miss Pounteney came forward, and stood in renev over the fragile and melancholy Kate, and burst out wi his, Kate? Is it really possible, after what you kno nd all our minds, that you have dared to bring y tions into my brother's house? That it is not enough t! we are to have the disgrace of your mean connections, but we are to have your sisters and brothers to no end coming into the very house, and sending up their beggarly names and designations by the very servants! Kate, I must not permit this. I will not, I shall not:" and she stamped with rage.

"Oh, Miss Pounteney," said Kate, with clasped hands, "will you not let me go and see my sister? Will you just let me go and weep on the neck of my poor Flora? I will go to a private place, I will go to another house if you please; I will do any thing when I return to you, if I ever return, for I care not if I never come i