young Mr Rentoul, the divinity student, who lately made a speech before the Anti-patronage Society, and therefore may reasonably expect very soon to get a kirk. But look--there comes dancing in from the ewe-bughts the bright-eyed Bessy, the flower of the flock, the most beautiful girl in Almondale, and fit to be bosom-burd of the Gentle Shepherd himself! O that we were a poet, to sing the innocence of her budding breast! But--heaven preserve us!--what is the angelic creature about? Making rumbledethumps! Now she pounds the potatoes and cabbages as with pestle and mortar! Ever and anon licking the butter off her fingers, and then dashing in the salt! Methinks her laugh is out of all bounds loud--and, unless my eyes deceived me, that stout lout whispered in her delicate ear some coarse jest, that made the eloquent blood mount up into her not undelighted countenance. Heavens and earth!--perhaps an assignation in the barn, or byre, or bush aboon Traquair. But the long dresser is set out with dinner--the gudeman's bonnet is reverently laid aside--and if any stomach assembled there be now empty, it is not likely, judging from appearances, that it will be in that state again before next Sabbath--and it is now but the middle of the week. Was it not my Lord Byron who liked not to see women eat? Poo--poo--nonsense! We like to see them not only eat--but devour. Not a set of teeth round that kitchen-dresser that is not white as the driven snow. Breath too, in spite of syboes, sweet as dawn-dew--the whole female frame full of health, freshness, spirit, and animation! Away all delicate wooers, thrice-high-fantastical! The diet is wholesome--and the sleep will be sound; therefore eat away, Bessy--nor fear to laugh, although your pretty mouth be full--for we are no poet to madden into misanthropy at your mastication; and, in spite of the heartiest meal ever virgin ate, to us these lips are roses still; "thy eyes are lode-stars, and thy breath sweet air." Would for thy sake we had been born a shepherd-groom! No--no--no! For some few joyous years mayest thou wear thy silken snood unharmed, and silence with thy songs the linnet among the broom, at the sweet hour of prime. And then mayest thou plight thy troth--in all the warmth of innocence--to some ardent yet thoughtful youth, who will carry his bride exultingly to his own low-roofed home--toil for her and the children at her knees, through summer's heat and winter's cold--and sit with her in the kirk, when long years have gone by, a comely matron, attended by daughters acknowledged to be fair--but neither so fair, nor so good, nor so pious, as their mother.