inley's no my king,--

For Charlie, bonnie Stuart Prince,
Has turned me Jacobite;
I'd wear displayed the white cockade.
An' (whiles) for him I'll fight!
An' (whiles) I'd fight for a' that's Scotch,
Save whusky an' oatmeal,
For wi' their ballads i' my bluid,
Nae Scot could be mair leal!

I fancied that I had pitched my verses in so high a key that no one
could mistake their burlesque intention. What was my confusion, however,
to have one of the company remark when I finished, 'Extremely pretty;
but a mutch, you know, is an article of WOMAN'S apparel, and would never
be worn with a kilt!'

Mr. Macdonald flung himself gallantly into the breach. He is such a dear
fellow! So quick, so discriminating, so warm-hearted!

"Don't pick flaws in Miss Hamilton's finest line! That picture of a fair
American, clad in a kilt and mutch, decked in heather and scones, and
brandishing a claymore, will live for ever in my memory. Don't clip the
wings of her imagination! You will be telling her soon that one doesn't
tie one's hair with thistles, nor couple collops with cairngorms."

Somebody sent Francesca a great bunch of yellow broom, late that
afternoon. There was no name in the box, she said, but at night she wore
the odorous tips in the bosom of her black dinner-gown, and standing
erect in her dark hair like golden aigrettes.

When she came into my room to say good night, she laid the pretty frock
in one of my trunks, which was to be filled with garments of fashionable
society and left behind in Edinburgh. The next moment I chanced to look
on the floor, and discovered a little card, a bent card with two lines
written on it:--

'Better lo'ed ye canna be,
Will ye no' come back again?'

We have received many invitations in that handwriting. I know it well,
and so does Francesca, though it is blurred; and the reason for this,
according to my way of thinking, is that it has been lying next
the moist stems of flowers, and unless I do her wrong, very near to
somebody's warm heart as well.

I will not betray her to Salemina, even to gain a victory over that
blind and deaf but much beloved woman. How could I, with my heart
beating high at the thought of seeing my ain dear laddie before many
days?

Oh, love, love, lassie,
Love is like a dizziness:
It winna lat a puir body
Gang aboot his business.'

Chapter XIV. The wee theekit hoosie in the loaning.

'Now she's ca