work on the burn or Nancy's song-making, save when necessary for
clearness.

For me, however, the life of Nancy Stair has a far deeper significance
than that set forth by either of these gifted authors. My knowledge of
her was naturally of the most intimate; I watched her grow from a
wonderful child into a wonderful woman; and saw her, with a man's
education, none but men for friends, and no counselings save from her
own heart, solve most wisely for the race the problem put to every
woman of gift; and with sweetest reasoning and no bitter renouncings
enter the kingdom of great womanhood.

To tell this intimate side of her life with what skill I have is the
chief purpose of my writing, but there are two other motives almost as
strong. The first of these is to clear away the mystery of the murder
which for so long clouded our lives at Stair. To do this there is no
man in Scotland to-day so able as myself. It was I who bid the Duke to
Stair; the quarrel which brought on the meeting fell directly beneath
my eyes; I heard the shots and found the dead upon that fearful night,
and afterward went blindfolded through the bitter business of the
trial. I was the first, as well, to scent the truth at the bottom of
the defense, and have in my possession, as I write, the confession
which removed all doubt as to the manner in which the deed was
committed.

The second reason is to set clear Nancy's relation to Robert Burns, of
which too much has been made, and whose influence upon her and her
writings has been grossly exaggerated. Her observation of natural
genius in him changed her greatly, and I have tried to set this forth
with clearness; but it affected her in a very different manner from
that which her two famous biographers have told, and I have it from her
own lips that it was because of the Burns episode that she stopped
writing altogether.

If it be complained against me that the tale has my own life's story in
it, I would answer to the charge that only a great and passionate first
love could have produced a child like Nancy, and I believe that the
world is ever a bit interested in the line of people whose loves and
hates have produced a recognized genius. Then, too, the circumstances
attending her birth had more influence on her after life than may at
first be seen, giving me as they did such a tenderness for her that I
have never been able to cross her in any matter whatever.

Much of the story, of which I was not dir