’How sweet to roam by Allander, to breathe the balmy air, When cloudless are the summer skies, and woods and fields are fair; To see the skylark soaring high, and chanting on the wing, While in yon woods near Calder Kirk the wild birds sweetly sing.’ He was busy with the new book—choosing and arranging; and Maisrie, as his amanuensis, jotted down memoranda as to the poets to be included, and the pieces most characteristic of them. For he was not to be pacified into silence and acquiescence—in these clearer moods. There was hurry, he said. Some one else might step in. And he cross-examined Vincent about the quotations that Hugh Anstruther had made at the Burns’ Celebration in New York. "I hardly remember," Vincent answered him. "There were a good many. But there was one piece I thought rather pathetic—I don’t recall the name of it—but it was about a little pair of shoes—the mother thinking of her dead child." "What?—what?" said the old man, quickly. "Not James Smith’s? Not ’The Wee Pair o’ Shoon’?" "Well, yes, I think that was the title," said Vincent. An anxious and troubled expression came into the sick man’s eyes: he was labouring with his memory—and Maisrie saw it. "Never mind, grandfather: never mind just now: if you want it, I’ll write to Mr. Anstruther for it. See, I will put it down in the list; and I’ll send for it; and it will be back here in plenty of time." "But I know it quite well!" he said, fretfully, "The last verse anyway. ’The eastlin wind blaws cauld, Jamie—the snaw’s on hill and plain——’" He repeated those two lines over and over again, with half-shut eyes; and then all at once he went on with the remainder— "’The flowers that decked my lammie’s grave Are faded noo, an’ gane! O, dinna speak! I ken she dwells In yon fair land aboon; But sair’s the sicht that blin’s my e’e— That wee, wee pair o’ shoon.’" There was a kind of proud look in his face as he finished. "Yes, yes; it’s a fine thing to have a good memory—and I owe that to my father—he said there never was a minute in the day that need be wasted—you could always repeat to yourself a verse of the Psalms of David. I think the first word of approval—I ever got from him—ye see, Maisrie, we were brought up under strict government in those days—was when I repeated the CXIX. Psalm—the whole twenty-two parts—with hardly a mistake. And what a talisman to carry about with ye—on the deck of a steamer—on Lake Ontario—in the night—with the stars overhead—then the XLVI. Psalm comes into your mind—you are back in Scotland—you see the small church, and the boxed-in pews—the men and women standing up to sing—the men all in black—I wonder if they have _Ballerma_ in the Scotch churches now—and _Drumclog_—and _New St. Ann’s_—" He shut his eyes—those unnaturally brilliant eyes—for a second or so; but the next second they were open and alert again.