The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nancy Stair, by Elinor Macartney Lane

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Title: Nancy Stair
A Novel

Author: Elinor Macartney Lane

Release Date: March 20, 2009 [EBook #28366]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_Nancy Stair_

_A NOVEL_

_By ELINOR MACARTNEY LANE_

_Author of "Mills of God"_

_A. L. BURT COMPANY, Publishers
NEW YORK_

COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

_Published May, 1904_

_To_ Frank Brett Noyes
_Who accepted, with a kind letter,
The first story I ever wrote,
This tale of_ Nancy Stair _is dedicated,
As a tribute of affection,
From one old friend to another._

"For woman is not undeveloped man,
But diverse; could we make her as the man,
Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference."

TENNYSON.

"Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears,
Her noblest work she classes, O,
Her 'prentice hand she tried on man,
And then she made the lasses, O."

ROBERT BURNS.

"Ye can't educate women as you can men. They're
elemental creatures; and ye can no more change their
natures than ye can stop fire from burning."

HUGH PITCAIRN.

PREFACE BY LORD STAIR

Two excellent accounts of the beautiful Nancy Stair have already been
published; the first by Mrs. George Opie, in the Scots News, giving a
detailed account of the work on the burnside, and a more recent one by
Professor Erskine, of our own University, which is little more than a
critical dissertation upon Nancy as a poet; the heart of the matter
with him being to commend her English verses, as well as those in "gude
braid Scot."

With these accounts to be secured so easily it may seem presumptuous,
as well as superfluous, for me to undertake a third. I state at the
outset, therefore, that it is beyond my ambition and my abilities to
add a word to stories told so well. Nor do I purpose to mention either
the