To be a little more particular upon a peculiarity of our two ladies, which enters as rather a “loud colour” in the web of our story, there was a sufficient reason for their celibacy. They had a mother who, as the saying goes, was “a woman of price”--such a one as Solomon excepts from so many, that I am afraid to mention the number. She was a good Calvinist, without insisting too much for election and predestination. She was affectionate, without the weakness which so often belongs to doating mothers; and she possessed, along with the charm of universal kindness, a strength of mind which demanded respect without diminishing love. No wonder that her daughters loved her even to that extent that neither of the two could think of leaving her so long as she lived. An inclination this, or rather a resolution, which had been confirmed in them by certain experiences they had had of what their mother had suffered from having been deprived by death of an elder daughter, and by marriage of a younger; the latter of whom had gone with her husband, a Mr Darling, to Calcutta, under the patronage of Major Scott, the friend of Warren Hastings. But there was another reason which kept the sisters from marrying--one which will, I suspect, be very slow to be believed; and that was, their love for each other. But I am resolute in urging it, because, in the first place, it is not absolutely against the experience of mankind; and, secondly, because, while it forms a part of the story as narrated to me, it is necessary as one of the two sides of a contrast, without which I could not answer for a certain effect in my picture. Certain, at least, it was that more than one external revolving body in the shape of lovers came within the sphere of their attraction for each other, and could produce no deflection in the lines of their mutual attachment. It was said that one of them had been jilted. I do not know; but the circumstance would explain a fact more certain that the sisters, in their then lively humour of young blood, used to sing a love-defiance song, which might have been both sport and earnest. My informant gave me the words. It is a kind of rough mosaic, with borrowed verses, yet worth recording:-- A farmer’s daughter fair am I, As blithe as May-day morning, And when my lover passes by, I laugh at him wi’ scorning. Ha! ha! ha! fal lal la! Ha! ha! fal lal laldy! There came a cock to our father’s flock, And he wore a double kaim, O; He flapt his wings, and fain would craw, But craw he could craw nane, O. A braw young man came courting me, And swore his wife he’d make me; But when he knew my pounds were few, The rogue he did forsake me. Gae whistle on your thumb, young man, You left me wae and weary; But, now I’ve got my heart again, Gude faith, I’ll keep it cheery.