nd I were nought but shadows, brother,
And we are shadows still."

Room for a lady, room, as at Megiddo
The hosts made way for passage of the king,
For from the darkness crept there forth a widow
In weeds and wedding ring.

"I am the widow, I, whereof the singers
Of Scotland sang, their cruel words so smote
My tender heart, that ofttimes itched my fingers
To take them by the throat.

"He scoffed at me, dour bachelor of Glasgow,[E]
If I existed not for him, the knave,
'Twas all his fault who let some bonnie lass go
Unwedded to her grave."

[B] Aulus Agerius and Numerius Negidius are names continually occurring
in the Roman institutional writers as typical names of parties to legal
process, corresponding very much to the John Stiles and John Nokes of
the older English law-books, and the Amr and Zaid of Mohammedan law.
John Stiles was frequently contracted to J. S.

[C] _Vi_ and _clam_ were part of the form of the interdict, which was a
mode of procedure by which the praetor settled the right of possession of
landed property.

[D] The casual ejector was John Doe, who was, like Richard Roe, an
entirely imaginary person, of much importance in the old action of
ejectment abolished in 1852.

[E] The allusion is to the "Advocates' Widows Fund," subscribed to by
all members of the Scottish bar, married or unmarried. The non-existent
widow of the unmarried advocate has been a frequent subject of legal
verse. See "The Bachelor's Dream," by John Rankine, (_Journal of
Jurisprudence_, vol. xxii. p. 155), "My Widow," by David Crichton (_id._
vol. xxiv. p. 51).

The Squire's Daughter

We crawled about the nursery
In tenderest years in tether,
At six we waded in the sea
And caught our colds together.

At ten we practised playing at
A kind of heathen cricket,
A croquet mallet was the bat,
The Squire's old hat the wicket.

At twelve, the cricket waxing slow,
With home-made bow and arrow
We took to shooting--once I know
I all but hit a sparrow.

She took birds' nests from easy trees,
I climbed the oaks and ashes,
'Twas deadly work for hands and knees,
Deplorable for sashes.

At hide and seek one summer day
We played in merry laughter,
'Twas then she hid her heart away,
I never found it a