The Hotel de Londres, I will venture to say, will be a favourite resort for persons of a romantic disposition, and especially for poets. It was my good fortune to meet there and be kindly greeted by one. I hope I commit no indiscretion in naming Mr. Sydney Dobell. Mr. Dobell had some years ago heard of me and my family from a common friend; and, my name coming to his ears as I was paraded through the Hotel, he sent me his card. He was doubly welcome, for his own sake and for that of the absent. We spoke, of course, of Sanremo, and I was very glad to hear him say that, much pleased as he had been with Spain, and the south of France, which he had lately visited, nowhere had he found so sheltered and charming a nook as Sanremo. He inquired affectionately about my mother and brother-both, alas! gone from me -and I was grateful to him for the evident shock of pain which my sad answer gave him. He was silent for a while, and, when he spoke again, it was to quote a passage from Fichte about sons who had made the name of their mothers venerated by every one-a sentiment which went straight to my heart. We parted with a warm shake of the hand, and a good-bye, which conveyed, I am sure, a blessing from both hearts.

The winter sun had set, and it was time to think of a speedy retreat home

wards. So our two last visits had to be hurried through-the one to Doctor Panizzi's family, the other to the warmhearted councilman, the friend of my uncle, the Canon, whom I had missed in the morning. After a cordial farewell, and manifold thanks to Doctor Panizzi for all he had done for us in his double capacity of host and guide, we entered our one-eyed calessino-true it is that the one lamp was big enough for twoand were off. Night by this time had quite closed in the road was dark, and, owing to the collateral railway works, was here and there rough and rugged, which made prudent Bernardino drive cautiously. The lights of the pretty little town gleaming along the shore and up the hill were the last I saw of it. I waved my hand in token of farewell; then I sank into a vague reverie of its past, present, and future, out of which I was not roused till I arrived at home, and passed from outer darkness to the bright light of my fire and lamp.

And now, gentle reader, if this my chat has succeeded in transfusing into your mind any portion of the charm and poetry with which Sanremo has always been invested in mine, I shall rest satisfied that not in vain have I fulfilled my promise to my friends of Sanremo to bring them before the notice of my English friends.

CHAPTER XLVI.

It was, as we have said, a lovely summer morning when Colin set out on his excursion, after the fatigues of the winter and spring. His first stage was naturally Ramore, where he arrived the same evening, having picked up Lauderdale at Glasgow on his way. A more beautiful evening had never shone over the Holy Loch; and, as the two friends

approached Ramore, all the western sky was flaming behind the dark hills, which stood up in austere shadow, shutting out from the loch and its immediate banks the later glories of the sunset. To leave the eastern shore, where the light still lingered, and steal up under the shadow into the soft beginning of the twilight, with Ramore, that "shines where it stands," looking out hospitably from the brae, was like leaving the world

of noise and commotion for the primitive life, with its silence and its thoughts; and so, indeed, Colin felt it, though his world was but another country parish, primitive enough in its ways. But then it must not be forgotten that there is a difference between the kingdom of Fife, where wheat grows golden on the broad fields, and where the herrings come up to the shore to be salted and packed in barrels, and the sweet Loch half hidden among the hills, where the cornfields are scant and few, and where grouse and heather divide the country with the beasts and the pastures, and where, in short, Gaelic was spoken within the memory of man. Perhaps there was something of the vanity of youth in that look of observation and half amused, half curious criticism which the young man cast upon the peaceful manse, where the minister, who had red hair, had painfully begun his career when Colin himself was a boy. It was hard to believe that anything ever could happen in that calm house, thus reposing among its trees, with only a lawn between it and the church, and looking as peaceful and retired and silent as the church itself did. It is true Colin knew very well that things both bitter and joyful had happened there within his own recollection; but that did not prevent the thought striking him, as he glided past in the little bustling steamer, which somehow, by the contrast, gave a more absolute stillness to the pretty rural landscape. Perhaps the minister was walking out at that moment, taking his peaceful stroll along the dewy road,-a man whose life was all fixed and settled long ago, to whom nothing could ever happen in his own person, and whose life consisted in a repetition over and over of the same things, the same thoughts, pretty nearly the same words. To be sure, he had a wife, and children, and domestic happiness; but Colin, at his time of life, made but a secondary account of that. He looked at the manse accordingly with a smile as he passed on out of sight. The manse of Lafton was not nearly so lovely, but-it was different;

how. And the same thought was in his mind as he went on past all the tranquil houses. How did they manage to keep existing, those people for whom life was over, who had ceased to look beyond the day, or to anticipate either good or evil? To be sure this was very unreasonable musing; for Colin was aware that things did happen now and then on the Holy Loch. Somebody died occasionally, when it was impossible to help it, and by turns somebody was born, and there even occurred, at rare intervals, a marriage, with its suggestion of life beginning; but these domestic incidents were not what he was thinking of. Life seemed to be in its quiet evening over all that twilight coast; and then it was the morning with Colin, and it did not seem possible for him to exist without the hopes, and motives, and excitements which made ceaseless movement and commotion in his soul. To be sure, he too was only a country minister, and was expected to live and die among "his people" as peaceably as his prototype was doing on the Holy Loch; and this thought somehow it was that, falling into his mind like a humorous suggestion, made Colin smile; for his ideas did not take that peaceful turn at this period of his existence. He was so full of what had to be done, even of what he himself had to do, that the silence seemed to recede before him, and to rustle and murmur round him as he carried into it his conscious and restless life. He had even such a wealth of existence to dispose of that it kept flowing on in two or three distinct channels, a thing which amused him when he thought of it. For underneath all this sense of contrast, and Lauderdale's talk, and his own watch for the Ramore boat, and his mother at the door, No. 1 of the Tracts for the Times was at the same time shaping itself in Colin's brain; and there are moments when a man can stand apart from himself, and note what is going on in his own mind. He was talking to Lauderdale, and greeting the old friends who recognised him in the

planning his tract, and making that contrast between the evening and the morning all at the same moment. And at the same time he had taken off the front of his mental habitation, and was looking at all those different processes going on in its different compartments with a curious sense of amusement. Such were the occupations of his mind as he went up to the Loch, to that spot where the Ramore boat lay waiting on the rippled surface. It was a different homecoming from any that he had ever made before. Formerly his prospects were vague, and it never was quite certain what he might make of himself. Now he had fulfilled all the ambitions of his family, as far as his position went. There was nothing more to hope for or to desire in that particular; and, naturally, Colin felt that his influence with his father and brothers at least would be enhanced by the realization of those hopes, which, up to this time, had always been mingled with a little uncertainty. He forgot all about that when he grasped the hands of Archie and of the farmer, and dashed up the brae to where the Mistress stood wistful at the door; but, notwithstanding, there was a difference, and it was one which was sufficiently apparent to all. As for his mother, she smoothed down the sleeve of his black coat with her kind hand, and examined with a tender smile the cut of the waistcoat which Colin had brought from Oxford-though, to tell the truth, he had still a stolen inclination for "mufti," and wore his uniform only when a solemn occasion occurred like this, and on grand parade; but, for all her joy and satisfaction at sight of him, the Mistress still looked a little shattered and broken, and had never forgotten-though Colin had forgotten it long ago the "objections" of the parish of Lafton, and all that her son had had "to come through," as she said, "before he was placed."

"I suppose a's weel now?" Mrs. Campbell said. "No that I could have any doubts in my own mind, so far as you were concerned; but, the mair ex

have in other folk-though that's an awfu' thing to say, and gangs against Scripture. Me that thought there was not a living man that could say a word of blame to my Colin! And to think of a' the lees that were invented. His father there says it's a necessary evil, and that we maun have popular rights; but for me I canna see the necessity. I'm no for doing evil that good may come," said the Mistress; "its awfu' papistry that and to worry a poor callant to death, and drive a' that belongs to him out o' their wits-"

แ

"He's not dead yet," said the farmer, nor me out of my ordinary. I'll not say it's pleasant; but so long as they canna allege onything against a man's morality I'm no so much heeding; and it's a poor kind of thing to be put in by a patron that doesna care a pin, and gangs to another kirk."

"I'm awfu' shaken in my mind about that," said the Mistress s; "there's the Free Kirk folk-though I'm no for making an example of them-fighting among themselves about their new minister, like thae puir senseless creatures in America. Thamas, at the Millhead, is for the ane candidate, and his brother Dugald for the tither; and they're like to tear each other's een out when they meet. That's ill enough, but Lafton's waur. I'm no for setting up priests, nor making them a sacerdotal caste as some folk say; but will you tell me," said Mrs. Campbell, indignantly, "that a wheen ignorant weavers and canailye like that can judge my Colin? ay, or even if it was thae Fife farmers driving in their gigs. I would like to ken what he studied for and took a' thae honours, and gave baith time and siller, if he wasna to ken better than the like of them. I'm no pretending to meddle with politics that are out of my way-but I canna shut my een," the Mistress said, emphatically. "The awfu' business is that we've nae respect to speak of for onything but ourselves; we're so awfu' fond of our ain bit poor opinions, and the little we ken. If there was ony change in our parish-and the

little progress can be made in a lifetime, and how difficult it is to change evil into good. Colin's discontent, on the contrary, was that exhilarating sentiment which stimulates youth, and opens up an endless field of combat and conquest. At his end of the road it looked only natural that the obstacles should move of themselves out of the way, and that what was just and best should have the inevitable victory. When he had done, he thought with a tenderness which brought tears to his eyes, yet at the same moment a smile to his lips, of the woman's impatience that would hasten the wheels of fate, and call upon God to take matters, as she said, in His own hand. That did not, as yet, seem a step necessary to Colin. He thought there was still time to work by the natural means, and that things were not arrived at such a pass that it was needful to appeal to miracle. It could only be when human means had failed that such a resource could be necessary; and the human means had certainly not failed entirely so long as he stood there in the bloom of his young strength, with his weapons in his hand.

sense.

He preached in his native church on the following Sunday, as was to be expected; and from up the Loch and down the Loch all the world came to hear young Colin of Ramore. And Colin the farmer, the elder, sat glorious at the end of his pew, and in the pride of his heart listened, and noted, and made inexorable criticisms, and commented on his son's novel ideas with a severe irony which it it was difficult to understand in its true The Duke himself came to hear Colin's sermon, which was a wonderful honour for the young man, and all the parish criticised him with a zest which it was exhilarating to hear. "I mind when he couldna say his Questions," said Evan of Barnton; "I wouldna like to come under ony engagement that he kens them noo. He was aye a callant awfu' fond of his ain opinion, and for my part I'm no for Presbyteries passing ower objections so easy. Either he's of Jowett's school or he's no; but I never

come to. There were some awfu' suspicious expressions under his second head if you could ca' yon a head," said the spiritual ruler, with natural contempt; for indeed Colin's divisions were not what they ought to have been, and he was perfectly open to criticism so far as that was concerned.

"A lot of that was out of Maurice," said another thoughtful spectator. "I'm aye doubtful of thae misty phrases. If it wasna for hurting a' their feelings, I would be awfu' tempted to say a word. He's no' that auld, and he might mend."

"He'll never mend," said Evan. "I'm no' one that ever approved of the upbringing of these laddies. They have ower much opinion of themselves. There's Archie, that thinks he knows the price of cattle better than a man of twice his age. She's an awfu' fanciful woman, that mother of theirs-and then they've a' been a wee spoiled with that business about the English callant; but I'll no say but what he has abilities," the critic added, with a national sense of clanship. The parish might not approve of the upbringing of the young Campbells, nor of their opinions, but still it had a national share in any reputation that the family or any of its members might attain.

Colin continued his course on the Monday with his friend. He had stayed but a few days at home, but it was enough, and all the party were sensible of the fact. Henceforward that home, precious as it was, could not count for much in his life. It was a hard thing to think of, but it was a necessity of nature. Archie and the younger sons greeted with enthusiasm the elder brother, who shared with them his better fortunes and higher place; but, when the greeting was given on both sides, there did not remain very much to say; for, to be sure, seen by Colin's side, the young Campbells, still gauche, and shamefaced, and with the pride of a Scotch peasant in arms, looked inferior to what they really were, and felt soand the mother felt it for them, though Colin was her own immediate heir and