erhaps. We did not recognize the head at once, and asked the
little woman who it was.

"Homer, the graund Greek poet," she answered cheerily; "an' I'm to
have anither o' Burns, as tall as Homer, when my daughter comes hame
frae E'nbro'."

If the shade of Homer keeps account of his earthly triumphs, I think
he is proud of his place in that humble Scotchwoman's gillyflower
garden, with his head under the drooping petals of granny's white
mutches.

What do you think her "mon" is called in the village? John o' Mary!
But he is not alone in his meekness, for there are Jock o' Meg, Willie
o' Janet, Jem o' Tibby, and a dozen others. These primitive
fishing-villages are the places where all the advanced women ought to
congregate, for the wife is head of the house; the accountant, the
treasurer, the auditor, the chancellor of the exchequer; and though
her husband does catch the fish for her to sell, that is accounted
apparently as a detail too trivial for notice.

When we passed Mary's cottage, on our way to the sands next day,
Burns's head had been accidentally broken off by the children, and we
felt as though we had lost a friend; but Scotch thrift, and loyalty to
the dear Ploughman Poet, came to the rescue, and when we returned,
Robbie's plaster head had been glued to his body. He smiled at us
again from between the two scarlet geraniums, and a tendril of ivy had
been gently curled about his neck to hide the cruel wound.

After such long, lovely mornings as this, there is a late luncheon
under the shadow of a rock with Salemina and Francesca, an idle chat,
or the chapter of a book, and presently Lady Ardmore and her daughter
Elizabeth drive down to the sands. They are followed by Robin
Anstruther, Jamie, and Ralph on bicycles, and before long the stalwart
figure of Ronald Macdonald appears in the distance, just in time for a
cup of tea, which we brew in Lady Ardmore's bath-house on the beach.

XIX

"To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways."

_The Cotter's Saturday Night._

We have lived in Pettybaw a very short time, but I see that we have
already made an impression upon all grades of society. This was not
our intention. We gave Edinburgh as our last place of residence, with
the view of concealing our nationality, until such time as we should
choose to declare it; that is, when publi