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The next was the important day, when, according to the forms and ritual of the Scottish Kirk, Reuben Butler was to be ordained minister of Knocktarlitie, by the Presbytery of . And so eager were the whole party, that all, excepting Mrs. Dutton, the destined Cowslip of Inverary, were stirring at an early hour.

And what shall I say of Miss Letty? She was ten years older than her brother, and as strong as a horse. She was great at walking, and recommended that exercise strongly to all young ladies as an antidote to every ill, from love to chilblains. She was short and dapper in person; not ugly, excepting that her nose was long, and had a little bump or excrescence at the end of it.

Then mounting their steeds, and releasing Ranger from durance in the stable, they rode homewards for about three miles, when they entered the village in the valley at the foot of the steep rocky hill, from which it was named Fern Torr. Excepting the bare rugged summit, this hill was well covered with wood, and opposite to it rose more gently another elevation, divided into fields and meadows.

Then Nefert rose, kissed her mother's hand, and went silently into her own room. Katuti remained alone; she felt as if a dead hand held her heart in its icy grasp, and she muttered to herself: "Ani is right nothing turns to good excepting that from which we expect the worst." She held her hand to her head, as if she had heard something too strange to be believed.

Excepting the dreaded recrossing of the mud, I hardly remember how we made our way back; but by one means and another I finally reached Charleston at nine o'clock, about as disreputable-looking a medical man as ever was seen.

But either because they did not choose to reply, or else because they could not speak English, they made no answer, excepting by those signs and gestures. The white man, however, made several motions that our hero was to arise, and, still grinning and nodding his head, pointed as though towards a saloon beyond. At the same time the negro held up our hero's coat and beckoned for him to put it on.

The story is this: There was in the year 1873 a family of five children, one of whom died that year and another in 1879, leaving two daughters and a poor cripple boy of eighteen. He was partially paralyzed, and had a malformation of the spine, so that he was an object of great commiseration. He was of a kind and cheerful disposition, and, excepting his spinal affliction, in good health.

One of the company with whom I passed the night in the boat, asked me, "O my lord, thou art apparently a stranger in these parts; hast thou any craft whereat thou canst work?"; and I answered, "By Allah, O my brother, I have no trade nor know I any handicraft, for I was a merchant and a man of money and substance and had a ship of my own, laden with great store of goods and merchandise; but it foundered at sea and all were drowned excepting me who saved myself on a piece of plank which Allah vouchsafed to me of His favour."

Again, I was convinced by the manners of both that there was more behind the tragedy than had been made to appear, excepting by the haziest sort of allusion; a potential factor whose existence had been barely suggested, whose nature remained entirely obscure. Simple enough. But was this all? I was sure not.

The private feasts, also, are accompanied with amusements very similar in character, excepting that there is generally a very long succession of dishes, with interchange of presents between hosts and guests, and also with the difference that religious ceremonies are practised only on the more public occasions, the Circassian having, at least before the introduction of Mahometanism, no domestic worship, nor guiding his personal conduct by any religious sentiments separate from his sense of duty in the domestic and social relations, his feeling of honor, and love of country.