ain, and of course it wouldn't dare to if there were
other real mountains within twenty-five miles.

When I made this remark Mrs. James asked me where, in my sequestered
life, I had got hold of such an unladylike word as "cheek," but I told
her I must have been born knowing it, as there was never a time in my
memory when I didn't. Also Mr. Douglas had used it several times in
Carlisle Castle.

"Haven't you forgotten him yet?" asked Sir S.

"It would be silly to forget, and have to make his acquaintance over
again at Edinburgh," I said. "He asked me particularly to think of him
during our trip whenever I should see the Douglas Heart. Now I have just
seen it at Lincluden."

"Douglas Heart indeed! Douglas cheek!" I heard Sir S. mutter.

There is one part of that road between Dumfries and Sweetheart Abbey I
shall never forget: the view from Whinny Hill--a sudden view springing
from behind trees, as if a green curtain had been pulled back from a
picture. In this picture there were the silver Nith, and purple Criffel
of course (which always tries to get itself noticed wherever you turn),
a great forty-foot monument put up to commemorate Waterloo; and again
the red triangle of Caerlaverock glowing on the green shore of the
Solway Firth.

I suppose the people who were shy of seeming sentimental insisted on
calling Sweetheart Abbey New Abbey. I can imagine Sir S. voting for the
change, because I fancy that he would endure torture rather than be
thought sentimental. He describes a place or a thing or a person
glowingly, then hurries to cap his description with a few joking or even
ironical words, lest he should be suspected of romance or enthusiasm.

The village is called New Abbey too, so it is safe to mention that to
the driest person. It was just beginning to be evening, an evening
softly gray as doves' wings folding down, when our Dragon sidled toward
an inn it saw, quite a nice little inn, where Sir S. announced that we
would stop the night. Before going in, however, he took us to look at a
queer bas-relief built into the wall of a whitewashed cottage on the
left side of the road. It showed three ladies industriously rowing a
boat across the ferry--pious dames who brought all the stones from
Caerlaverock, on the other side of the Solway, to build the Abbey.

"Rock of the Lark" is a delightful name, but Sweetheart Abbey is
prettier, and the reason of the name is the prettiest part. Only I wish
that the devoted Devorg