st aff her bonny shoon
Made o' gilded leather,
And she's put on her Hieland brogues
To skip amang the heather.
And she's cast aff her bonny goon
Made o' the silk and satin,
And she's put on a tartan plaid
To row amang the braken.'

Lizzie Baillie.

We are in the East Neuk o' Fife; we are in Pettybaw; we are neither
boarders nor lodgers; we are residents, inhabitants, householders, and
we live (live, mind you) in a wee theekit hoosie in the old loaning.
Words fail to tell you how absolutely Scotch we are and how blissfully
happy. It is a happiness, I assure you, achieved through great
tribulation. Salemina and I travelled many miles in railway trains, and
many in various other sorts of wheeled vehicles, while the ideal
ever beckoned us onward. I was determined to find a romantic lodging,
Salemina a comfortable one, and this special combination of virtues
is next to impossible, as every one knows. Linghurst was too much of a
town; Bonnie Craig had no respectable inn; Winnybrae was struggling to
be a watering-place; Broomlea had no golf-course within ten miles, and
we intended to go back to our native land and win silver goblets in
mixed foursomes; the 'new toun o' Fairlock' (which looked centuries old)
was delightful, but we could not find apartments there; Pinkie Leith was
nice, but they were tearing up the 'fore street' and laying drain-pipes
in it. Strathdee had been highly recommended, but it rained when we were
in Strathdee, and nobody can deliberately settle in a place where it
rains during the process of deliberation. No train left this moist and
dripping hamlet for three hours, so we took a covered trap and drove
onward in melancholy mood. Suddenly the clouds lifted and the rain
ceased; the driver thought we should be having settled weather now, and
put back the top of the carriage, saying meanwhile that it was a verra
dry simmer this year, and that the crops sairly needed shoo'rs.

"Of course, if there is any district in Scotland where for any reason
droughts are possible, that is where we wish to settle," I whispered to
Salemina; "though, so far as I can see, the Strathdee crops are up to
their knees in mud. Here is another wee village. What is this place,
driver?"

"Pettybaw, mam; a fine toun!"

"Will there be apartments to let there?"

"I cudna say, mam."

"Susanna Crum's father! How curious that he should live here!" I
murmured; and at this moment the sun came out,