things; but henceforth, for centuries, that maiden has free admittance
into the dream-land of Beautiful Women, and she and all her race are
famous! I should like to know the present head of the family, and
ascertain what value, if any, they put upon the celebrity thus won.

We passed through Catrine, known hereabouts as "the clean village of
Scotland." Certainly, as regards the point indicated, it has greatly
the advantage of Mauchline, whither we now returned without seeing
anything else worth writing about.

There was a rain-storm during the night, and, in the morning, the
rusty, old, sloping street of Mauchline was glistening with wet, while
frequent showers came spattering down. The intense heat of many days
past was exchanged for a chilly atmosphere, much more suitable to a
stranger's idea of what Scotch temperature ought to be. We found,
after breakfast, that the first train northward had already gone by,
and that we must wait till nearly two o'clock for the next. I merely
ventured out once, during the forenoon, and took a brief walk through
the village, in which I have left little to describe. Its chief
business appears to be the manufacture of snuff-boxes. There are
perhaps five or six shops, or more, including those licensed to sell
only tea and tobacco; the best of them have the characteristics of
village-stores in the United States, dealing in a small way with an
extensive variety of articles. I peeped into the open gateway of the
churchyard, and saw that the ground was absolutely stuffed with dead
people, and the surface crowded with gravestones, both perpendicular
and horizontal. All Burns's old Mauchline acquaintance are doubtless
there, and the Armours among them, except Bonny Jean, who sleeps by
her poet's side. The family is now extinct in Mauchline.