was a man standing by the window, and at sight of him,
for it was Robert Burns, and the time was not yet come for me to say to
him what might have to be said, I drew back, thinking myself unseen,
and closed the door. I had gone but a few steps in the darkness when I
felt a hand clapped on my shoulder, and turning, found Burns himself
beside me.

"Come back," he cried, "come back; I want a word with ye, Lord Stair.
You've come down," he cried, "to take your daughter from the company of
those unfit for her to know. And you're right in it. But the thought
that ye showed toward me when you went out to avoid my company is
wrong; wrong, as I must face my Maker in the great last day! I've had
my way with women; but in this one case I've taken such care of her as
ye might hae done yourself!

"She's found the truth of me, and our friendship is by with forever! I
know that well.

"But tell her from me, will ye not, that such righting of a wrong as
can be done I am determined to do, and that the lassie she kens of is
to be my wife as soon as she chooses. Tell her," and here the tears
stood big in his eyes, "that I am sorrier than I can ever say that her
mind has been assoiled by my wicked affairs--" and here he broke forth
into a sudden heat--"God Almighty!" he cried, "if a woman like that had
loved me, Shakespeare would have had to look to his laurels. Aye! and
Fergusson, too. The Lord himself made me a poet, but she might have
made me a man!"[6]

[6] Lord Stair mentions here that he afterward had from this same
girl (Mrs. Nellie Brown), the following description of the poet's
first meeting with the sister, Jean Armour:

"D'ye see Sam McClellan's spout over the gate there? Weel, it was
just whaur Rab and Jean first foregathered. Her and me had gaen
there for a gang o' water, an' I had fill't my cans first an'
come ower here juist whaur you an' me's stan'in. When Jean was
fillin' her stoups, Rab Burns cam' up an' began some nonsense or
ither wi' her, an' they talked an' leuch sae lang that it juist
made me mad; to think, tae, that she should ha'e a word to say
wi' sic a lowse character as Rab Burns. When she at last cam'
ower, I gied her a guid hecklin. 'Trowth,' said I, 'Jean, ye ocht
to think black-burnin' shame o' yersel. Before bein' seen daffin'
wi' Rab Burns, woman, I would far raither been seen speakin'--to
a sodger.' That was th