Maist braks my hairt in twa.

So fetch me tartans, heather, scones,
An' dye my tresses red;
I'd deck me like th' unconquer'd Scots
Wha hae wi' Wallace bled.
Then bind my claymore to my side,
My kilt an' mutch gae bring;
While Scottish lays soun' i' my lugs
McKinley'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'd fight!
An' (whiles) I'd fight for a' that's Scotch,
Save whuskey 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."

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 forever 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 the 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