come to Ayr; but I did know that his first
home on our own island of Dhrum must have been much like this--just a
clay biggin with a but and a ben. He, too, was born a genius. He, like
Burns, knew grinding poverty. He, too, was taken up by great ones and
dropped again, for he has told me so.

Once Sir S. was near me for a minute--without his Aline--and I did want
some word to prove that I was still his princess, he my knight. But all
I got from him on the subject was: "Well, do you think the knights
'notice' that you're a princess?"

I stared, bewildered. Then I remembered our conversation in the car,
before Mrs. West came and annexed the front seat. Of course I knew he
meant the American boys.

"They notice that I'm like my mother," said I.

"Oh, is that all?" And he laughed. Then Mrs. West flitted over to ask if
we oughtn't to go to the museum.

It is a pathetic little museum, with intimate relics and countless
pictures of Burns, each one making him look entirely different from all
the others. By and by we went on to the monument, the strange classic
temple that had loomed out of the twilight as we came to Ayr. The road
from town to the monument was the way of Tam o' Shanter's wild ride, or
almost the same; only there's a tram-line now to spoil the romance, if
one chooses to let it be spoiled. As for me, I'd scorn to let romance be
broken by an object so dull as a tram-car. When things are ugly I simply
make them transparent for my eyes, and see through them as if they
didn't exist.

I had to do a good deal of this juggling in the neighbourhood of the
monument; for the booths bristling with Burns souvenirs, and the tea
gardens where crowds drink to Burns's memory in ginger pop and fizzy
lemonade, would be rather dreadful if they were not funny. I'm sure,
though, Burns's sense of humour would make him laugh a mellow, ringing
laugh: if he could see those thousands of bottles of temperance drinks
being emptied in his honour.

It was good to escape from the gay, meretricious gardens to the
graveyard of Alloway Auld Kirk, where Tam o' Shanter's witches danced,
and where Burns's father lies buried. There was peace, too, where the
Brig o' Doon arched its camel-back over a clear brown, rippling stream.
There, through the singing of the water, through the playing of an old
blind fiddler scraping the tune of "Annie Laurie," I could hear the true
Burns song, the music of his thoughts sweetly ringing on, to keep the
world