t her seat
An' centre in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest;
Nae treasures nor pleasures
Could make us happy lang;
The heart ay's the part ay
That makes us right or wrang."
--BURNS, 1785.

"It's just grand," I said, "Nancy; and there're no two ways of it."

"There's about all there is of life in this little book, and it's made
my rhyming-ware cheap. Do you think," she says, coming over to kiss me
before I sent her off to bed, "do you think I can ever meet wi' Mr.
Burns?"

"If you want it, you shall," I said; "unless the man himself objects.
We'll have him up to Stair; and now forget him and get some rest,
Little Flower."

She went away and left me, and I turned to sleep with that great
couplet going over and over in my head like the clatter of horses'
hoofs:

"The heart ay's the part ay
That makes us right or wrong."

CHAPTER IX

DANVERS BECOMES BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH NANCY

There were two reasons why Danvers was able to see Nancy almost
uninterruptedly the next two or three weeks, the first being that we
were but late returned from London, with old ties to be formed anew;
and the second, a law affair among the Burn-folk, the trouble of which
took much of Nancy's time, and eventually brought into our lives the
great Duke of Borthwicke, of whom I shall have more to say. These left
Danvers a fair field where Nancy was concerned, and no man living ever
covered his ground better or made a braver wooing. From the minute his
eye lighted upon her in the doorway it seemed as though it were "all by
with him," as the country folk say, for he seemed to have no thoughts
but for her, with the world welcome to a knowledge of the fact.

Every day the conservatories of Arran were stripped for her, hampers of
fruit, and books, and notes which sent the blood rioting to her cheeks,
were over every morning; and before they could be forgotten, Danvers
was there in person, a handsome, passionate, dominating lover, whose
nature was one I could understand and whose love-making was as headlong
and impetuous as my own had been.

I remember watching him bending over her one night as they stood
together before going in to dinner, and Marian's words came back to me
at sight of him:

"For ye woo as a man should woo; and I'm won as a woman should be
won--because she has no will to choose."

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