It is hard to leave the Nith, so much is to be said on each of its tributaries. There is the Cairn, for instance, with its memories of the noble family of Glencairn. Also it flows by Maxwellton, still the seat of the Lauries, a fair scion of whose ancient house is celebrated in the pleasing old ditty known to everybody as "Annie Laurie," though _the_ song that rises in your mind when Glencairn is mentioned is Burns's noble tribute to the memory of the fourteenth earl, ending-- "The mother may forget the babe That smiles sae sweetly on her knee, But I'll remember thee, Glencairn, And a' that thou hast done for me!" Even when we leave Dumfries and pass into Galloway (which consists of the stewartry of Kirkendbright and shire of Wigtown) we are not quite away from the Nith. On the right bank, nearly opposite Caerlaverock, the small stream of New Abbey Pow runs into the estuary. Follow this a little way up, and you come on the scanty but beautiful ruins of Sweetheart Abbey. The origin was as romantic as the name: it was founded in memory of her husband by the Devorgilla already mentioned. He died in 1269 at Barnard Castle, and was buried there, all save his heart, which his spouse had enclosed in a "coffyne of evorie," and ever at mealtimes the "coffyne" was carried in and placed beside her, and she "dyd reverens" to it as if it had been her living lord. Thus she existed for twenty years, and then was splendidly interred before the high altar of Dulee Cor, or Sweetheart Abbey, so called because the heart of her dead spouse was laid on hers. Verily, love is stronger than death! * * * * * The /Dee/, chief river of Kirkcudbrightshire, rises in desolate Loch Dee, among heather-clad hills with impressive names--Lamachen, Cairngarnock, Craiglee, and so forth. How those Celtic words suggest of themselves a remote and desolate wilderness! Dee means "dark river," and in the early part of its flow so sullen is its appearance that, with impressive tautology, it is called the "black water of Dee." Some twenty miles from its source its colour is lightened by its confluence with the Water of Ken, and, like other Border streams, the scenery on its banks gradually becomes softer and richer. We have selected for illustration (p. 326) a beautiful spot on the Dee at Douglas Tongueland, within two or three miles of the burgh of Kirkcudbright. Here the river still retains some of its early wildness, for it rushes foamin' over masses of rock, but the scenery on its banks is sweetly rural rather than wild and mountainous.