’Where got you that trick of song, love?’ Mrs. Maclehose would ask, sentimentally, ’since you say you have never loved?’ ’I had one dozen of singing lessons at the school,’ replied the ever-practical Alison, ’and I had begun to the harp before I left.’ ’Was it that year of school made you different to your sisters, think you, Ally?’ ’Am I different?’ asked Alison, wonderingly. ’Oh, I would not miscall the honest lasses,’ cried Nancy, ’they are all good and sweet, I am sure. But about you there is a difference—a gentler accent, a shade of softness—I know not what.’ ’’Twas a very genteel school, indeed,’ said Alison, respectfully. ’But it was too dear. So I only stayed but the one year, instead of three, and poor Kate and Maggie never got at all.’ ’You’d be a treasure, with that "wood-note wild" of yours to our bard, Ally!’ ’Our bard?’ inquired Alison, not at all certain what a bard might be. ’Ay,’ said Nancy, with a kindling eye. ’Our bard, but not ours only! The world’s poet—the singer for all time, and for all hearts—Robert Burns! Child, haven’t you heard of him, the ploughman poet?’ ’A ploughman?’ said Alison, conjuring up the vision of one Donald, the ploughman at The Mains, with his stubbly beard and bowed legs. ’A ploughman, yes,’ cried Nancy, ’but what a ploughman! He has had the town at his feet, Ally! From the highest to the lowest in the land, all men do him honour. And as for the women, child, they are ready to kill each other for a glint of his eye! The very duchesses hang about him, and there’s not a titled lady that will not sorn upon and flatter him to get him to her tea-table. Never has the town gone so mad about a man before!’ ’And have you often seen him?’ asked Alison. ’To my lasting sorrow and vexation, never!’ cried Nancy, vehemently; ’and, oh, Ally, ’tis the one burning wish—the longing of my heart! And there’s that insensible wretch, my cousin Herries, who has the entry almost everywhere the poet goes, and last winter saw him almost nightly, and he scorns the privilege that I would sell my soul for! Him have I plagued, and others have I plagued, to get me known to my idol; but in vain, as yet! It will come, though! Never was so ardent a wish that did not bring its own fulfilment, ay, and its own punishment too, sometimes,’ she added, with a sudden wistfulness. ’Ally, _you_ never have these passions, these rebellious cravings, do you, child?’ ’Sure, never,’ said Alison, soberly, ’and never would, I think.’