thus won.

We passed through Catrine, known hereabouts as "the clean village of
Scotland." Certainly, as regards the point indicated, it has greatly
the advantage of Mauchline, whither we now returned without seeing
anything else worth writing about.

There was a rain-storm during the night, and, in the morning, the
rusty, old, sloping street of Mauchline was glistening with wet, while
frequent showers came spattering down. The intense heat of many days
past was exchanged for a chilly atmosphere, much more suitable to a
stranger's idea of what Scotch temperature ought to be. We found,
after breakfast, that the first train northward had already gone by,
and that we must wait till nearly two o'clock for the next. I merely
ventured out once, during the forenoon, and took a brief walk through
the village, in which I have left little to describe. Its chief
business appears to be the manufacture of snuff-boxes. There are
perhaps five or six shops, or more, including those licensed to sell
only tea and tobacco; the best of them have the characteristics of
village-stores in the United States, dealing in a small way with an
extensive variety of articles. I peeped into the open gateway of the
churchyard, and saw that the ground was absolutely stuffed with dead
people, and the surface crowded with gravestones, both perpendicular
and horizontal. All Burns's old Mauchline acquaintance are doubtless
there, and the Armours among them, except Bonny Jean, who sleeps by
her poet's side. The family is now extinct in Mauchline.

Arriving at the railway-station, we found a tall, elderly, comely
gentleman walking to and fro and waiting for the train. He proved to
be a Mr. Alexander,--it may fairly be presumed the Alexander of
Ballochmyle, a blood-relation of the lovely lass. Wonderful efficacy
of a poet's verse, that could shed a glory from Long Ago on this old
gentleman's white hair! These Alexanders, by-the-by, are not an old
family on the Ballochmyle estate; the father of the lass having made a
fortune in trade, and established himself as the first landed
proprietor of his name in these parts. The original family was named
Whitefoord.

Our ride to Ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a
cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery, and causes a
woful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we
see. Much of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly
direction. We reached Ayr in the