elderberries and lilacs flower on the burn; and the gilly
flowers and hollyhocks are bloomin' by the north tower; when the wind
blows soft through the rowans, and the pineys' pink and white faces, as
big as cabbages, nod against the old south wall, there's no bonnier
place in Scotland than your own place of Stair."

He was so moved at the thought of my leaving him, that I answered in
some haste,

"In truth, Huey, I've no thought of going away."

"Ah," he answered, "ye don't know it, but ye have. It's been in ye for
a week back,"--and casting his eye out of the window, "there's Mr.
Carmichael now, riding in by the Holm gate. I'll jest open the door
till him."

This was an entirely unnecessary attention on Huey's part, as Sandy
Carmichael, whose estate of Arran Towers joins my own on the west,
generally opened the door of Stair for himself, or the windows either,
for the matter of that, if the latter were more convenient entrance
from the place he happened to be.

My recollections of Sandy begin with my recollections of myself. As
lads together, indeed before we were long out of skirts, we guddled for
fish in the burn-water; went birds' nesting, raced our ponies, fought
each other behind the stables and made a common stock of our money for
the purchase of dimpies, peoys and jelly-tarts. We attended the High
School together and upon leaving it chose the same college, where Sandy
ran a merry pace, throwing his money out of the windows, as it were,
and gaining for himself the reputation of wearing more waistcoats,
drinking more whisky, making love to more women, and writing better
verses, than any other man in the University.

He was a big, athletic, clean-limbed fellow, with brown hair, a bright
face, warm eyes, and friendly genial ways which came from the kindest
heart in the world. Five years before the time of which I write, which
would be in 1763, he had married the Honorable Miss Llewellyn from the
north, a pitiable pale-colored lady, who, half crazed by jealousy and
ill health, was sending him back to unmarried ways again. Being only
sister to Lord Glenmore, who had no heirs and was subject to seizures
of a very malignant type, it was yearly expected that the title would
come to Sandy's bit of a boy, a handsome-faced little fellow of four,
who paid me long visits at self-selected times, demanding my watch, a
pipe to smoke, and horses to ride.

Before Huey had time to reach the door, Sandy, in his riding clothe