To see the pair, the man so massive strong,
The maid so frail, yet winsome as a song,
You might have thought the oak had chosen for bride
The gowan glinting on the green hill-side.

And Jeanie Cameron! happy wife was she,
Sailing with Donald o'er the summer sea,
And dreaming, as the good ship cleft the foam,
Of independence and a happy home
On that abundant and rejoicing soil
That asks but hands to recompense their toil.
And Fortune favoured them, as Fortune will
All who add strength and virtue to good will.
And Donald's hands found always work to do,
Work well repaid, which, growing, ever grew;
Work and its fair reward but seldom known
In the old land, whence hopeful he had flown;
Work all sufficient for the passing day,
With something left to hoard and put away.
Content and Donald never dwelt apart,
And Love and Jeanie nestled at his heart.

In summer eves, his face towards the sun,
He loved to sit, his long day's labour done,
And smoke his pipe beneath the sycamore,
That cast cool shadow at his cottage door,
And hear his bonnie Jean, like morning lark,
Or nightingale preluding to the dark,
Sing the old Gaelic melancholy songs
Of Scotland's glory, Scotland's rights and wrongs
Of true-love ditties of the olden time,
Breathing of Highland glens and moorland thyme.

Thus years wore on. Their sky seemed sunny blue
Without a cloud to shade the distant view
Of happiness to come. A child was born,
Fresh to the father's heart as light of morn,
Sweet to the mother's as a dream of Heaven,
A blessing asked, but scarcely hoped when given.
Most dearly prized! Alas! for human joy,
That Fortune never builds but to destroy!
The child was purchased by the mother's health!
And Donald's heart grew heavy, as by stealth
He gazed and saw the sadness in her smile
That lit, yet half extinguished it the while;
For, ah! poor Jeanie was too fair and frail
To bear unscathed Canadia's wintry gale;
And hectic roses flourished on her cheek,
Filling his heart with grief too great to speak.

Long, long, he watched her, and essayed to find
Comfort and hope. At last upon his mind
Burst suddenly the thought that he'd forego
All he had earned in that New World of woe,
And bear her back, ere utterly forlorn,
To the moist mountain clime where she was born,
To dear Lochaber and the Highland hills,
And wave-invaded glens and wimpling rills,
Where first he found her! Late, alas! too late!

"Donald," she said, "I feel approaching fate,
And may not travel o'er the stormy sea,
To die on shipboard and be torn from thee;
Here let me linger till I go to rest!
Time may be short or long, God knoweth best.
But as the tree that's planted in the ground,
And sheds its blossoms and its leaves around,
Dies where it lives, so let me live and die
Where thou hast brought me, 'twixt the earth and sky.
I'd not be buried in th' Atlantic wave,
But in brown earth with daisies on my grave;
Fresh blooming gowans from Lochaber's braes,
With Scottish earth enough, the mound to raise
Above my head. Donald! let this be done
When your poor Jeanie's mortal race is run!"

The strong man wept. "Jeanie!" was all he said.
"Oh, Jeanie! Jeanie!" and he bowed his head,
And hid his face behind his honest hands,
The saddest man in all those happy lands.
"Jeanie!" he said, "ye maunna, maunna dee,
And leave the world to misery and me!"

"Donald!" she answered, "woeful is the strife
That my warm heart is fighting for its life,
And much as I desire for thy dear sake,
And the wee bairn's, to live till age o'er take,
I feel it cannot be. God's will is all,
Let us accept it whatsoe'er befall!"

And Jeanie died. She had not lain i' tho mools*
Three days ere Donald laid aside his tools,
And closed his forge, and took his passage home
To Glasgow, for Lochaber o'er the foam.
Alone with Sorrow and alone with Love,
The two but one to lead his heart above;
And long ere forty days had ran their round,
Donald was back upon Canadian ground;
Donald, the tender heart, the rough, the brave,
With earth and gowans for his true love's grave.
* Scottice— the mould, the earth.

WITCHCRAFT IN THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY.

A RECENT trial for witchcraft—or at
least, fraudulent fortune-telling—suggests
the unpleasant reflection that the belief in
witches still exists to a very considerable
extent in England. We do not, it is true,
hear of it much in the busy towns; because
there is not so much gossiping rumour in
them as in country places, and because the
people, with all their shortcomings, are a
little less ignorant. Nevertheless, the
ignorance still displayed in the nineteenth
century may well occasion surprise, and
suggest inquiries concerning that said school-
master who is declared to be "abroad." In
London, the credulity is chiefly among
servant girls, who give their sixpences to
fortune-tellers for information on certain
important questions about "dark men," "fair
men," and the like. The line of division
between fortune-telling and witchcraft being
a very slight one, we need not be surprised
that the credulous often step over
this boundary, and commit themselves to
the most gross and absurd impositions.

In a case tried at Stafford in 1823, one
Sarah Roxborough was charged with the
following piece of roguery. She announced
to a tradesman's wife at Hanley, that she
could "rule the planets, restore stolen
goods, and get in bad debts." On one
particular day, the wise woman appeared at
the tradesman's house, and began her
professional incantations. She desired the wife
to have a fire kindled in an upper room; to
obtain from her husband twenty-five
one-pound notes, or five-pound notes; to
place the notes in her bosom; and to let
them remain there till nine o'clock in the
evening. The credulous wife did as she was
directed. The woman Roxborough came
again later in the day, went up-stairs, and
sent the wife down for some pins and some