the great word Motherhood. Nancy as a
mother. My Little Flower with a floweret of her own might be the
solution of a happy marriage for her more than compensating for the
independence and adulation which she had always had.

As I tramped along I came to a definite thought concerning the Burns
poems as well, which was that I would set fire to them, as if by
accident, that very day, and have them by and done with. And as for the
man himself, it would, I thought, be no hard matter to keep him out of
our lives; in which conclusions I left out just two things--the throw
of Fate, which none of us can reckon upon, and my own rhyme-loving
nature and fondness for being entertained.

It was Fate's throw with which I had to reckon first. I had come in my
musings to a side-path which led from the old Abbey to the foot-bridge,
when I heard the sound of a man's singing:

"As I cam in by Glenap,
I met wi' an ancient woman,
Who told me to cheer my heart up
For the best of my days were comin'."

The singer was sitting upon a fallen tree, beside a smoking fire, with
the women, children, aye, and the very dogs, gathered about him as
though he carried a charm. He was a thick-set man, dark and swarthy,
with a pair of eyes literally glowing. His hat was cocked upon the back
of his head, and he had his plaid thrown around him in a certain manner
known to himself alone. He was eating and drinking with these
gipsy-folk, for he'd a bannock in one hand and a mug of hot drink in
the other, but at sight of me he set them down and came forward to
greet me; and my amazed eyes rested on Robert Burns himself, as though
raised up by some of his own witches to fit into my thoughts--Robert
Burns whom I had met at Mauchline before he was famous, the year
before.

He inquired if I were stepping townward, and on the instant I asked him
to breakfast with me at the Star and Garter, and this, you will
remember, within five short minutes of my resolve to burn his book and
keep him out of our lives.

It was charged against me later that I was lax in this Burns affair
and, because of my own infatuation for men of parts, took too little
thought for the temptation to which I exposed my daughter. I answer the
accusation by telling the circumstances exactly as they fell, and he
who reads may judge the truth of these charges for himself. As we came
to the door of the inn, I asked Creech and Dundas, who happened to be
passing, to join us at