te.

There, too, lies Thomas Loughead, Hairdresser, a profession far too
little celebrated in song and story. His stone is a simple one, and
bears merely the touching tribute:--

He was lovely and pleasant in his life,

the inference being, to one who knows a line of Scripture, that in his
death he was not divided.

These kirkyard personalities almost lead one to believe in the
authenticity of the British tradesman's epitaph, wherein his
practical-minded relict stated that the 'bereaved widow would continue
to carry on the tripe and trotter business at the old stand.'

. . . .

One day when we were walking through the little village of Strathdee
we turned the corner of a quiet side street and came suddenly upon
something altogether strange and unexpected.

A stone cottage of the everyday sort stood a trifle back from the road
and bore over its front door a sign announcing that Mrs. Bruce, Flesher,
carried on her business within; and indeed one could look through
the windows and see ruddy joints hanging from beams, and piles of
pink-and-white steaks and chops lying neatly on the counter, crying,
'Come, eat me!' Nevertheless, one's first glance would be arrested
neither by Mrs Bruce's black-and-gold sign, nor by the enticements of
her stock-in-trade, because one's attention is rapped squarely between
the eyes by an astonishing shape that arises from the patch of lawn
in front of the cottage, and completely dominates the scene. Imagine
yourself face to face with the last thing you would expect to see in
a modest front dooryard,--the figurehead of a ship, heroic in size,
gorgeous in colour, majestic in pose! A female personage it appears to
be from the drapery, which is the only key the artist furnishes as to
sex, and a queenly female withal, for she wears a crown at least a foot
high, and brandishes a forbidding sceptre. All this seen from the front,
but the rear view discloses the fact that the lady terminates in the
tail of a fish which wriggles artistically in mid-air and is of a
brittle sort, as it has evidently been thrice broken and glued together.

Mrs Bruce did not leave us long in suspense, but obligingly came out,
partly to comment on the low price of mutton and partly to tell the
tale of the mammoth mermaid. By rights, of course, Mrs. Bruce's husband
should have been the gallant captain of a bark which foundered at sea
and sent every man to his grave on the ocean-bed. The ship's figure