for the rest of our lives.

We have been bidding good-bye to people and places and things, and
wishing the sun would not shine and thus make our task the harder.
We have looked our last on the old grey town from Calton Hill, of all
places the best, perhaps, for a view; since, as Stevenson says, from
Calton Hill you can see the Castle, which you lose from the Castle, and
Arthur's Seat, which you cannot see from Arthur's Seat. We have taken a
farewell walk to the Dean Bridge, to gaze wistfully eastward and marvel
for the hundredth time to find so beautiful a spot in the heart of
a city. The soft-flowing Water of Leith winding over pebbles between
grassy banks and groups of splendid trees, the roof of the little temple
to Hygeia rising picturesquely among green branches, the slopes of
emerald velvet leading up to the grey stone of the houses,--where, in
all the world of cities, can one find a view to equal it in peaceful
loveliness? Francesca's 'bridge-man,' who, by the way, proved to be a
distinguished young professor of medicine in the University, says
that the beautiful cities of the world should be ranked
thus,--Constantinople, Prague, Genoa, Edinburgh; but having seen only
one of these, and that the last, I refuse to credit any sliding scale of
comparison which leaves Edina at the foot.

It was nearing tea-time, an hour when we never fail to have visitors,
and we were all in the drawing-room together. I was at the piano,
singing Jacobite melodies for Salemina's delectation. When I came to
the last verse of Lady Nairne's 'Hundred Pipers,' the spirited words had
taken my fancy captive, and I am sure I could not have sung with more
vigour and passion had my people been 'out with the Chevalier.'

'The Esk was swollen sae red an' sae deep,
But shouther to shouther the brave lads keep;
Twa thousand swam owre to fell English ground,
An' danced themselves dry to the pibroch's sound.
Dumfounder'd the English saw, they saw,
Dumfounder'd they heard the blaw, the blaw,
Dumfounder'd they a' ran awa', awa',
Frae the hundred pipers an' a', an' a'!'

By the time I came to 'Dumfounder'd the English saw,' Francesca left
her book and joined in the next four lines, and when we broke into the
chorus Salemina rushed to the piano, and although she cannot sing, she
lifted her voice both high and loud in the refrain, beating time the
while with a dirk paper-knife.

'Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a',
Wi'