nd just caught the boat. Realistics come in very well sometimes when
they take the form of legs.

The steamboat took us over nearly the whole of Lake Katrine, and I must
say that I was so busy fitting verses to scenery that I don't remember
whether it rained or the sun shone. When we left the boat we took a
coach to Inversnaid on Loch Lomond, and, as we rode along, it made my
heart almost sink to feel that I had to leave my poetry behind me, for
I didn't know any that suited this region. But when we got in sight of
Loch Lomond a Scotch girl who was on the seat behind me, and had
several friends with her, began to sing a song about Lomond, of which I
only remember, "You take the high road and I'll take the low road, and
I'll get to Scotland afore you."

I am sure I must have Scotch blood in me, for when I heard that song it
wound up my feelings to such a pitch that I believe if that girl had
been near enough I should have given her a hug and a kiss. As for Jone,
he seemed to be nearly as much touched as I was, though not in the same
way, of course.

We took a boat on Loch Lomond to Ardlui, another little town, and then
we drove nine miles to the railroad. This was through a wild and solemn
valley, and by the side of a rushing river, full of waterfalls and deep
and diresome pools. When we reached the railroad we found a train
waiting, and we took it and went to Oban, which we reached about six
o'clock. Even this railroad trip was delightful, for we went by the
great Lake Awe, with another rushing river and mountains and black
precipices. We had a carriage all to ourselves until an old lady got in
at a station, and she hadn't been sitting in her corner more than ten
minutes before she turned to me and said:

"You haven't any lakes like this in your country, I suppose."

Now I must say that, in the heated condition I had been in ever since I
came into Scotland, a speech like that was like a squirt of cold water
into a thing full of steam. For a couple of seconds my boiling stopped,
but my fires was just as blazing as ever, and I felt as if I could turn
them on that old woman and shrivel her up for plastering her
comparisons on me at such a time.

"Of course, we haven't anything just like this," I said, "but it takes
all sorts of scenery to make up a world."

"That's very true, isn't it?" said she. "But, really, one couldn't
expect in America such a lake as that, such mountains, such grandeur!"

Now I made up my min