Carolina Oliphant was born in "the auld house of Gask," in Perthshire, on the 16th of August, 1766, six years later than Robert Burns. She came of stanch Jacobite stock on both sides, her father, Laurence Oliphant, a name since made familiar by the singular and notable career of the accomplished writer, traveler, and scholar, who puzzled the world not less by his naïve religious aberrations than by his accomplishments, took up arms for the Stuarts in "the Forty-five," and suffered attainder and temporary banishment in company with his father, who had also been "out" in the Earl of Mar's rebellion in "the Fifteen." Young Laurence Oliphant, while in exile at Versailles, married his cousin, Margaret Robertson, daughter of Duncan Robertson of Strowan, chief of the clan Dorrochy. The Robertsons had also been ardent Jacobites, and suffered in purse and person for their loyalty. The grandfather, Duncan Robertson, was notable in character and personality as well in adventure and misfortune, and had his portrait painted in immortal colors by Scott as the Baron of Bradwardine. Carolina, baptized after the exiled prince, spent her infancy and early childhood on the Continent in France and Belgium, under the care of her grandmother, her parents being in feeble health, and then returned with them to the old home at Gask, where she spent her happy, healthy, and gay youth and young womanhood. From a feeble and delicate child she had grown into a strong, vigorous, and beautiful young woman, the beauty of the country-side, called "the Flower of Strathearn" and "the lovely Car," and her life was of a kind to strengthen her ardent patriotism and cultivate her fondness for the native music, poetry, and song of which Scotland was full, but whose transcendent merits were unknown and unappreciated by the literary world until they were illuminated by the light of the genius of Burns a few years later. The anecdotes of her life give a very charming picture of innocent gayety, family affection, and friendship. She played the Jacobite airs for her aged grandfather, as she afterward wrote Jacobite songs for his pleasure, and with a skill and feeling which won the difficult approval of the famous Neil Gow, the wandering fiddler, whose skill on his instrument was like that of Scott's "Wandering Willie," and whose presence at a laird's house would draw all the young people for miles around to dance to the winged notes of his strathspeys and hornpipes. She was foremost in all scenes of gayety, and is said to have taken a carriage at midnight and driven several miles to bring one of her young lady friends out of bed for a party where partners were scarce. In the simple social pleasures of the local aristocracy, the county balls and meetings, and the gatherings of the tenantry, "the Flower of Strathearn" was a conspicuous figure, while her keen eyes were taking in the queer figures that appeared later in all the glow of