1 26 RISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 



tained, was an elaborate essay on causation. We, of course, 

 passed each other on our several ways without sign of recogni- 

 tion. Quickening her pace, however, she was soon out of 

 sight ; and I just thought, on one or two occasions afterwards, 

 of the apparition that had been presented as she passed, as 

 much in keeping with the adjuncts — the picturesque forest and 

 the gorgeous sunset. It would not be easy, I thought, were 

 the large book but away, to furnish a very lovely scene with a 

 more suitable figure. Shortly after, I began to meet the young 

 lady at the charming tea-parties of the place. Her father, a 

 worthy man, who, from unfortunate speculations in business, 

 had met with severe losses, was at this time several years dead; 

 and his widow had come to reside in Cromarty, on a somewhat 

 limited income, derived from property of her own. Liberally 

 assisted, however, by relations in England, she had been en- 

 abled to send her daughter to Edinburgh, where the young lady 

 received all the advantages which a first-rate education could 

 confer. By some lucky chance, she was there boarded, with a 

 few other ladies, in early womanhood, in the family of Mr. 

 George Thomson, the well-known correspondent of Burns, 

 and passed under his roof some of her happiest years. Mr. 

 Thomson — himself an enthusiast in art — strove to inoculate 

 the youthful inmates of his house with the same fervour, and to 

 develop whatever seeds of taste or genius could be found in 

 them ; and, characterized till the close of a hfe extended far 

 beyond the ordinary term by the fine chivalrous manners of the 

 thorough gentleman of the old school, his influence over his 

 young friends was very great, and his endeavours, in at least 

 some of the instances, very successful. And in none, perhaps, 

 was he more so than in the case of the young lady of my narra- 

 tive. From Edinburgh she went to reside with the friends in 



