lves,
When credit was sae free!--
But wae betide the Southron loon
That sold thae Halves to me!'"

I declare, upon the word of a Railway Director, that I was never more
taken aback in my life. Attached as I have been from youth to the Scottish
ballad poetry, I never yet had heard a ditty of this peculiar stamp, which
struck me as a happy combination of tender fancy with the sterner
realities of the Exchange. Provost Binkie smiled as he remarked my
amazement.

"It's only my daughter Maggie, Mr Dunshunner," he said. "Puir thing! It's
little she has here to amuse her, and sae she whiles writes thae kind o'
sangs hersel'. She's weel up to the railroads, for ye ken I was an auld
Glenmutchkin holder."

"Indeed! Was that song Miss Binkie's own composition?" asked I, with
considerable interest.

"Atweel it is that, and mair too. Maggie, haud your skirling!--ye're
interrupting me and the gentleman."

"I beg, on no account, Mr Binkie, that I may be allowed to interfere with
your daughter's amusement. Indeed it is full time that I were betaking
myself to the hotel, unless you will honour me so far as to introduce me
to Miss Binkie."

"Deil a bit o' you gangs to the hotel to-night!" replied the hospitable
Provost. "You bide where you are to denner and bed, and we'll hae a
comfortable crack over matters in the evening. Maggie! come ben, lass, and
speak to Mr Dunshunner."

Miss Binkie, who I am strongly of opinion was all the while conscious of
the presence of a stranger, now entered from the adjoining room. She was
really a pretty girl; tall, with lively sparkling eyes and a profusion of
dark hair, which she wore in the somewhat exploded shape of ringlets. I
was not prepared for such an apparition, and I daresay blushed as I paid
my compliments.

Margaret Binkie, however, had no sort of _mauvaise honte_ about her. She
had received her final polish in a Glasgow boarding-school, and did
decided credit to the seminary in which the operation had been performed.
At all events she was the reverse of shy, for in less than a quarter of an
hour we were rattling away as though we had been acquainted from
childhood; and, to say the truth, I found myself getting into something
like a strong flirtation. Old Binkie grinned a delighted smile, and went
out to superintend the decanting of a bottle of port.

I need not, I think, expatiate upon the dinner which followed. The
hotch-potch was unexceptionable, the salmon curdy,