ENGAGED.

"And will you love me always—always, as you do now?" asked the girl in a low and winning voice, and after a pause, while colouring deeply.

 "Could I ever cease to love you, Dove, darling?" replied the other, questioningly and tremulously.

 "And so you are to be my own—my very own."

  "So long as my heart has pulsation, Dove!"

   Thus it is, with a fragment of the "old, old story," first told in Eden, that our new one begins—and told in a veritable Eden too, where, under the glow of a glorious summer sunset, with seemingly all the flowers that the earth can produce, where the trees are of surpassing loveliness, and the tall feathery palms exceed in size and beauty the boasted ones of Kew, beside a pool where the snow-white lilies floated and the golden fish shot to and fro,—yet a place having the most prosaic of names—the Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh,—our two young friends were exchanging what Le Sage would call "marks of their mutual esteem."

  The hum of the adjacent city, towering high in air to the south, came with a subdued cadence to the ear; the birds twittered about, the sole witnesses apparently of the half fatuous caresses, which, with tender incoherencies, make up the delight of such a period, when Time itself seems to stand still.

  Most decorously and demurely sat the pair, when other bipeds passed near, and, to all appearance, they conversed fluently enough upon botany or anything else that occurred to them; but the moment they were alone face turned to face and eye to eye, while hand sought hand again.

  The love-talk in novels, though very delightful to lovers in general, and perhaps to young ladies in particular, we, ourselves, are rather apt to skip; for, remembering our own slight experience in such matters, it seldom seems to have much in it that is capable of coherent record; but, as this is a true narrative and not all romance, a little of it must be given, as preluding and introductory.

  "And so you will always love me?" cooed the girl, as her lover, after one swift glance around them, kissed her for the second time, as yet; but her pouting lips invited a third, after which she started and said, "Now, Gillian, we must be very proper, for here come people who may know us."

"Let us walk, then."

  And, leaving the rustic sofa which was under a stately tree, they entered a long leafy avenue known as the Lovers' Walk, where doubtless the "old story" would be told over and over again.

And now to introduce them more fully to the reader.

  Dove Gainswood—she was well-named "Dove," so gentle and sweet was the girl in her nature—was the only daughter of a wealthy lawyer, living in one of the stateliest squares, at the west-end of the Scottish metropolis—a personage of whom we shall unhappily have much more than his name to record. Under the middle height, she had a face that was charming in its contour and expression, with the pure bright complexion that usually accompanies such thick rich hair as hers, gorgeous dark auburn, of two shades, we may say, for it seemed as if shot with gold when in the sunshine, and her soft dark eyes were of that violet grey which looks black by lamp-light.

  Gillian Lamond, her lover and cousin, we shall briefly say, was a handsome, stout, and well-developed young fellow, taller than Dove, by more than a head; with clear, honest, hazel eyes, who looked older than his years, and milder than his real nature, which was proud, fiery, and resentful, for he was, as his name imports, a Highlander by blood.

  In the dawn, but not the noon, of love, there is a difference in its effect upon the sexes. At first, a young man is timid—often the more timid of the two; thus hesitation, hope and doubt—doubt of himself and still more of his uncle Gainswood—made Gillian Lamond almost bashful; while Dove was quite, or nearly quite, collected, with a shy yet triumphant smile on her sweet little face.

  When they had parted last, a mere boy and girl, she was in her fifteenth year, and since then had spent three years at a finishing educational establishment. Now, when she had returned to Scotland in her eighteenth year, and when Cousin Gillian was close on twenty-one, it was somewhat perilous to be constantly together—for relationship and propinquity are Cupid's greatest accessories; and Gillian formed a portion of their domestic circle, as her father was his legal guardian.

  The hoyden of three years ago had returned from France mistress of many accomplishments; she had a very pure intonation, and spoke very sweetly, with a soft, low, cooing voice, quite in accordance with her name; and had, in addition to that great charm in woman, acquired on the Continent—or perhaps they were natural to her—some pretty little ways and tricks of manner, that were very attractive.

  Gillian was an only son. His father and Mr. Gainswood had married two sisters; both of them were dead, and had been so for some years, at the time our story opens. The mother of Gillian, with all her little brood, of whom he was the sole survivor, had died far away in India; and he, in early boyhood had been committed to his uncle's care, while his father, Colonel Lachlan Lamond, whom he had not seen for fourteen years, remained "up country," as the phrase is, serving and scorching to amass money for one object, which had ever been the passion of his life.

  To regain by purchase the old estate of Avon-na-gillian, which had been for ages in his family, till it passed into other hands through the mischance of his having an extravagant grandfather, had been his aim and ambition since the days when he had first passed the Sand Heads of the Hooghly a poor cadet.

  As the chief of the Clan Donoquhy had done, when he purchased back his forfeited patrimony; as the late Glengarry hoped to do, when he parted with all his vast estates, save the old castled rock and the burial-place of his family, was the object of Colonel Lamond, and amid years spent as a collector in Central India, during which time he gradually passed, without much fighting certainly, to the head of his regiment, he never forgot the arid rocks and heathy glens of Avon-na-gillian; but had the mortification to see it thrice in the market, before he had been able to transmit to his brother-in-law, Gainswood, a sum sufficient for the purchase-money; for the coveted estate, though small and poor naturally and originally, was now rendered more valuable by its sheep and shootings.

  Trusting implicitly in Gideon Gainswood, whom he believed to be a man of the utmost probity, who was always reputed as such, and whom he deemed safe as the Agra Bank or the India House itself, he confided all to him; among others things, the most priceless, his only son, who, with his name, was to inherit the estate when re-won; and whom he would not permit—though it had been the lad's intense wish—to become a soldier, lest the chances of war or of a tropical climate might cut him off, as it had done all his little brothers, who lay buried far apart in different parts of India.

  Without binding him by any indenture, or fully educating him for the legal profession—as the old Colonel had some contempt for it—the injunctions to Gideon Gainswood were, that Gillian should learn habits of order and industry by having a desk in his office, and acquire sufficient knowledge of the law to make him careful, and able to hold his own against all comers when he got it, and became Lamond of Avon-na-gillian, in the Western Isles.

   Gillian sighed at this decision, but was compelled to acquiesce in his father's wishes, though repining bitterly; but ere long, after manifesting the greatest reluctance and repugnance, he suddenly began to devote himself with some perseverance to the dry mysteries of the law, and to plod at his desk with a willingness which his brother-clerks supposed to arise from the mere fact that he was a species of volunteer in the work, but which in reality rose from a desire to please his uncle Gainswood, and win his golden opinions, for a reason which did not at first strike that usually astute personage; and this was the return home of Dove, in whose society all the leisure hours of Gillian were passed, and he was her escort everywhere, to the great envy and admiration of his office-chums, who were only permitted to know the young lady by sight, and among whom Gillian was very popular—quite a lion in fact, from, his general bonhommie, suavity, and generosity, as he was always "standing" luncheons and dinners, as they phrased it, "to any extent."

  It was quite natural, their companionship, the girl thought—were they not cousins? He was quite the same as a handsome brother; but, of course, a thousand times more tender and attentive. Matters progressed rapidly and delightfully. Gideon Gainswood did not see the situation, so absorbed was he in the legal work of his dirty little world as a lawyer, and in the spiritual affairs of the next, as an Elder of the Kirk; but old Mrs. Elspat McBriar, a poor widowed relation, who managed his household, perceived it without the aid of her spectacles.

And so, with reference to all that we have explained, as they slowly promenaded to and fro, in the leafy tunnel of the Lovers' Walk, with his hand caressingly clasping Dove's—

"I should have been a soldier," said Gillian; "a soldier like my father, and all our forefathers, but for his eccentric reluctance and distinct objection thereto; but now, Dove, that you have come back to us, and now that—that you—"

"Are loved by me, Gillian?"

"Oh, my darling—yes!"

"Well?"

"Ambition of every kind, save to love you in return, and to please you—yes, to adore you, is dead within me!"

Et cætera.

Engaged! So they were engaged, these two, and full of rapture to think that they were so, and at the whole novelty of the sweet, yet secret situation. But to what end? Gillian's allowance was small, and he deemed the Colonel—notwithstanding his Indian pay and allowances—to be poor, as, according to the statements of his uncle Gainswood, the money destined for the acquisition of Avon-na-gillian came home slowly and in small sums, yet he had a vague hope of more monetary assistance from him in the future.

 Dove's father was, he knew, rich, far beyond what legal men in Scotland ever are; but he dared not reckon on that, as he knew him to be grasping and avaricious. Still less did the poor lad know that he, personally, was hated by him secretly, with the hate of those who wrong the innocent, and dread discovery, and the unweaving of the web of deceit.

But, of this, more anon.

 Withal that their love was in its flush, marriage, the natural sequel, seemed distant—even remote; but both were so young, there was time enough; and both were so happy, so hopeful in Heaven and so true in themselves.

 Poor hearts! they foresaw not then how all this love, hope, and truth were to be tested. It was in the sweet season of summer that Gillian Lamond walked there hand-in-hand with Dove, his heart brimming over with the new found joy.

 Alas! he could little foresee where that day six months was to find him—with Outram and Havelock, face to face with the fur-capped Persian Cavaliers of Nusser-ud-Deen, in the land of the great Cyrus—of Nusser-ud-Deen, the same shah whom we had so lately among us, at Buckingham Palace and Trentham—a startling transition indeed.