larney suddenly strikes a sympathetic chord in the bosom of this Scotch minister, who says his prayers devoutly beside them, and not only so, but moves the brotherly Smith to do so also in a true catholic spirit. The daily prayers in the churches make him "almost regret Catholicism." "Why," he cries, "should not we be free to think as we like about religion as about other things, and yet retain the grand, picturesque, blessed associations of an ancient national faith?"

On his return from this expedition he came to Rosneath to meet his wife, who had previously arranged to join him there: and here I may be allowed to say something about my own first acquaintance with the pair who henceforward were among the most intimate friends and associates of my life.

It was, I think, in 1861 that we first met. I had come to Scotland for the first time since my childhood, in the languor of great mental suffering and trouble, about a year before; and having been accidentally led to Rosneath in the course of collecting materials for the life of Edward Irving, with which I was beginning to occupy myself, had been struck by the wonderful beauty of the place-a combination of softness and mountain grandeur with which I was quite unacquainted—as well as by the kindness of friends: and after a winter in Edinburgh, took my little children there in the course of the summer. I was by that time in the state of mental and moral convalescence which, when one is still young enough to benefit by the beneficent operations of nature, succeeds great calamity as well as actual illness. And the beautiful air, the more beautiful mountains, the little loch between its soft banks, reflecting a sky not always bright indeed, but always full of dramatic surprises and sudden delightful effects, and sometimes heavenly with the unexpected glory of one of those days of perfect weather which are never more sweet than in the Highlands; added to the simple country life, the frequent cheerful meetings, the new neighbours all ready to

help a stranger back to the sunshine-gave a great impulse to all the powers of life. The manse was a cheerful centre of youth and bright intelligence and pleasant kindness, and there were many expeditions to be made by land and by water, which filled up the days. Trusting that the reader will pardon a recollection so personal, I am tempted to tell the little story of my first intimacy with Mrs Tulloch, the dear friend of all after-days. In some interval of the joint expeditions which included all the party, she and I alone made a little party of our own, with our children, to the head of the loch. There was only a year or two between us in point of age, and we were so far distinct from the younger members of the little gay and friendly community in our maturity of motherhood and experience, that the contrast drew us nearer to each other. Beyond the Garelochhead there stretches a heathery upland, all wild and fresh, commanding on one side the lovely Gareloch itself, and on the other the noble line of Loch Long, with Loch Goil branching off among its separate hills; and the magnificent line of peaks proudly called the Duke's Bowling - Green, stretching along the sky from west to north behind. The glow of the heather, sharply broken by here and there a bit of emerald moss, or the gleam of a little pool, the wide vault of the sky and flying clouds that went like breath over the hills, leaving no effect the same for five seconds together, the dazzle of the great Clyde sweeping downwards towards Arran and the glowing west, the wonderful splendour and variety of mountains and loch, and river and sky,-made an enchantment round us. I know no more beautiful mount of vision. We sat on the rustling heather, with the children playing by us, and became friends. Perhaps she too, like myself, was pleased to find a calmer pleasure than suited the lively company which was younger in age and in development than she and I. We talked, very likely, of our nurseries and the children's little ailments. Why not?

L

These things were more to us than the movements of the spheres. We were two women together, with nobody to note whether we were silly or wise; and we communed in our fashion, with the best result of all communings, that we were friends from that day.

After this there were a great many pleasant rambles and one or two excursions among the hills, of the humours of which I made at the time a little passing record. The small incidents of these holiday wanderings, the simple jests, the endless talk, the absurdities, and the moments of gravity, live and are remembered when many things of more importance have fallen into oblivion. The first time that two of us, survivors of that party, met after the Principal's death, there rose before both simultaneously the most trifling incident, at which we had laughed many a time, and at which, with tears in our eyes, we could not but smile again even then, so fully was his character and look, and all the special humour of the man associated with it. The days were bright, though dashed with perpetual rain, and life not yet deeply touched with gloom, though it had known some shadows. Up to this time, indeed, there had been little gloom in Tulloch's life. He had reached the full prime of manhood, a little more than Dante's half-way; he had been able as few men are to shape his life "upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought;" his cares had not been few, but there had been nothing in them to make him 'bate either heart or hope. No man could have more unbroken happiness at home; few in his country or profession had such advancement at his age. His faculties were in their fullest exercise and power; he had entered in literature, into one of the noblest paths of historical study, with success; he had gained, though amid many storms and defiances, so much of the confidence of his Church, in spite of the murmurs of the narrow-minded, as to have attained several of her most important offices. He had been admitted to the beginning of that intercourse with his

APPROACHING SHADOWS.

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Sovereign, which ended in a friendship of which the Queen has given affecting proof. All was well and prosperous in heart, and health, and life.

When such words are said of a man, the instinct of humanity foresees that the shadow is about to fall. And so it was. After that full and happy period, the gloom of a mysterious illness swept over this large and liberal life; and though there were long intervals of brightness still to come, and much progress both in the external and inner life, his after-years were divided into periods counting from one periodical attack to another-sad lines and limitations of an existence which at once in native vigour, and in the noble temperance of well-ordered days, seemed fortified against every danger.

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CHAPTER VII.

HIS FIRST ILLNESS.

IT must have been in the end of 1862 that this first illness began. Faint indications in the shape of unusual irritability (and he was by nature hasty, and prone now and then to sudden startling ebullitions of impatience, deeply regretted, and constantly confessed in pathetic self-humiliation before his God) and fits of melancholy had begun to appear, but not in a way that caused any alarm. His melancholy especially, and transient fits of disgust with all around him, were so mingled, as we all thought, with comic circumstances, and so humorously relieved by the perfect health of his appearance, by his own perception of the ludicrous, and the rueful fun which mingled with that uncomprehended disturbance, that his friends were more ready to laugh and to tell each other anecdotes of those apparent whims and vapours, which the aspect of this robust and splendid valetudinarian so completely belied, than to be alarmed by them. And he had one source of real annoyance, which in the beginning of 1863 had come to affect him more than any such trifling malignancy ought to do, but yet was a sufficiently reasonable cause of some irritation and disturbance of mind.

The effect of adverse criticism is very different upon different natures. It used to be one of the traditions of the literary world that Keats had been killed by his critics;