l that now remains for him!

I look'd, I scann'd her o'er and o'er,
And, looking, wondered more and more:
When suddenly I seem'd to espy
A trouble in her strong black eye,
A remnant of uneasy light,
A flash of something over-bright!
Not long this mystery did detain
My thoughts. She told in pensive strain
That she had borne a heavy yoke,
Been stricken by a twofold stroke;
Ill health of body, and had pined
Beneath worse ailments of the mind.

So be it!--but let praise ascend
To Him who is our Lord and Friend!
Who from disease and suffering
As bad almost as Life can bring,
Hath call'd for thee a second Spring;
Repaid thee for that sore distress
By no untimely joyousness;
Which makes of thine a blissful state;
And cheers thy melancholy Mate!

* * * * *

_Wednesday_, _September_ 21_st_.--The house where we lodged was airy, and
even cheerful, though one of a line of houses bordering on the
churchyard, which is the highest part of the town, overlooking a great
portion of it to the opposite hills. The kirk is, as at Melrose, within
the walls of a conventual church; but the ruin is much less beautiful,
and the church a very neat one. The churchyard was full of graves, and
exceedingly slovenly and dirty; one most indecent practice I observed:
several women brought their linen to the flat table-tombstones, and,
having spread it upon them, began to batter as hard as they could with a
wooden roller, a substitute for a mangle.

After Mr. Scott's business in the Courts was over, he walked with us up
the Jed--'sylvan Jed' it has been properly called by Thomson--for the
banks are yet very woody, though wood in large quantities has been felled
within a few years. There are some fine red scars near the river, in one
or two of which we saw the entrances to caves, said to have been used as
places of refuge in times of insecurity.

Walked up to Ferniehurst, an old hall, in a secluded situation, now
inhabited by farmers; the neighbouring ground had the wildness of a
forest, being irregularly scattered over with fine old trees. The wind
was tossing their branches, and sunshine dancing among the leaves, and I
happened to exclaim, 'What a life there is in trees!' on which Mr. Scott
observed that the words reminded him of a young lady who had been born
and educated on an island of the Orcades, and came to spend a summer at
Kelso and