which the unskillful fowler could only wound. The commoners of earth and air were dear to him; and the flower beside his path, the gowan wet with dew, was precious in his eyes. His heart was large, his mind was comprehensive, and his temper singularly sweet and sunny. Such was Robert Burns at Mossgiel, and a very likable person he was. But all the while there was another Robert Burns at Mossgiel, and he was not quite so likable. He had a strange fascination for women, and a strange disregard of the consequences of this fascination. This curious combination of contradictory traits was an unfortunate one, as a young woman of Mauchline was destined to learn. She was the daughter of a mason, and her name was Jean Armour. He met her on a race day at a house of entertainment which must have been popular, since it contained a dancing-hall, admission to which was free, any man being privileged to invite to it any woman whom he fancied and for whose diversion he was willing to disburse a penny to the fiddler. He was accompanied on this occasion by his dog, who insisted on following him into the hall and persisted in keeping at his heels while he danced,--a proof of its fidelity which created considerable amusement, and which its master turned to his personal account by saying he wished he could get any of the lasses to like him as well as his dog. Jean heard his remark, and not long afterwards, as he was passing through the washing-green where she was bleaching clothes (from which she begged him to call off his troublesome follower), she reminded him of it by asking him if he had yet got any of the lasses to like him as well as did his dog? He got one there and then; for from that hour Jean was attached to him and he to Jean. He was reticent about his conquest, concealing it from his closest friends, and even from his dearest foe, the Muse; but however reticent, his conquest was not to be concealed, for Jean one day discovered that she was with child. What he felt when this calamity was made known to him we know not, for he kept his own counsel. What he wished his friends to feel, if they could and would, we may divine from a poem which he wrote about this time,--an address to the rigidly righteous, into whose minds he sought to instill the charity of which he and Jean were sorely in need:-- "Then gently scan your brother man, Still gentler sister woman; Though they may gang a kennin' wrang To step aside is human: "One point must still be greatly dark, The moving why they do it; And just as lamely can ye mark How far perhaps they rue it."