e been obliged
to give up coffee and have tea, as the former beverage became too
unsettled on its journey from the kitchen to the breakfast-table. She
says she kens she is a guid cook, though salf-praise is sma'
racommendation (sma' as it is she will get no other!); but we have
little opportunity to test her skill, as she prepares only our
breakfasts of eggs and porridge. Visions of home-made goodies had
danced before our eyes, but as the hall clock doesna strike she is
unable to rise at any exact hour, and as the range draft is bad, and
the coals too hard to batter up wi' a hatchet, we naturally have to
content ourselves with the baker's loaf.

And this is a truthful portrait of "Calamity Jane," our one Pettybaw
grievance.

XVI

"Gae farer up the burn to Habbie's Howe,
Where a' the sweets o' spring an' simmer grow:
Between twa birks, out o'er a little lin,
The water fa's an' mak's a singan din;
A pool breast-deep, beneath as clear as glass,
Kisses, wi' easy whirls, the bord'ring grass."

_The Gentle Shepherd_.

That is what Peggy says to Jenny in Allan Ramsay's poem, and if you
substitute "Crummylowe" for "Habbie's Howe" in the first line, you
will have a lovely picture of the Farm-Steadin'.

You come to it by turning the corner from the inn, first passing the
cottage where the lady wishes to rent two rooms for fifteen shillings
a week, but will not give much attendance, as she is slightly
asthmatic, and the house is always as clean as it is this minute, and
the view from the window looking out on Pettybaw Bay canna be
surpassed at ony money. Then comes the little house where Will'am
Beattie's sister Mary died in May, and there wasna a bonnier woman in
Fife. Next is the cottage with the pansy garden, where the lady in the
widow's cap takes five o'clock tea in the bay window, and a snug
little supper at eight. She has for the first scones and marmalade,
and her tea is in a small black teapot under a red cozy with a white
muslin cover drawn over it. At eight she has more tea, and generally a
kippered herring, or a bit of cold mutton left from the noon dinner.
We note the changes in her bill of fare as we pass hastily by and feel
admitted quite into the family secrets. Beyond this bay window, which
is so redolent of simple peace and comfort that we long to go in and
sit down, is the cottage with the double white tulips, the cottage
with the collie on t