That sacred hour can I forget?
Can I forget the hallowed grove,
Where by the winding Ayr we met,
To live one day of parting love?
Eternity will not efface
Those records dear of transports past;
Thy image at our last embrace!
Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!

"Do you ever sing the songs of Burns?" asked Master Lewis.

"Would you like to hear me try 'Highland Mary'?"

"Do!" said Ernest Wynn, who was always affected by ballad music.

The Scotchman quoted a line or two of the poem, changing from the
English to the Scottish accent. The boys were charmed with the words,
and sat down on the grass to listen to

HIGHLAND MARY.

Ye banks and braes and streams around
The castle o' Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!
There simmer first unfauld her robes,
And there the langest tarry;
For there I took the last fareweel
O' my sweet Highland Mary.

How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk,
How rich the hawthorn's blossom,
As underneath their fragrant shade
I clasped her to my bosom!
The golden hours, on angel wings,
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.

Wi' monie a vow, and locked embrace,
Our parting was fu' tender;
And, pledging aft to meet again,
We tore oursels asunder:
But, oh! fell death's untimely frost
That nipt my flower sae early!
Now green 's the sod, and cauld 's the clay,
That wraps my Highland Mary!

Oh, pale, pale now, those rosy lips,
I aft hae kissed sae fondly!
And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mould'ring now in silent dust
That heart that lo'ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary.

The "banks and braes and streams around" gleamed like a vision of
enchantment in the full noon sunlight. Never had the boys listened to
a song amid such highly romantic associations.

Bidding the entertaining Scotchman farewell, the party returned to
Ayr, and thence to Glasgow, where it arrived in the lingering sunlight
of the long afternoon.

The next morning it left by rail for Edinburgh, that city of high
houses and terraced hills; of grandly picturesque beauty; of the times
of Bruce, and the bright and dark days of the Stuarts; wh