that now, over the years, it brings them all back to me as surely, as
potently, as if it had been indeed a sprig of Oberon's wild thyme
or Ophelia's rosemary for remembrance. As I have told you, we were
naughty children, sometimes even wicked children, but our conduct at
this house was, "humanly speaking, perfect." The old ladies listened
so sympathetically to our tales of how many trout we had that day
_guddled_ in the burn; of the colt we had managed to catch and
mount--as a family--by the aid of the dyke, and of the few delirious
moments spent on its slippery back before it threw us--as a family; of
the ins and outs of why Boggley's nose was swelling visibly and his
right eye disappearing. They would look at each other, nodding wisely
at intervals while they murmured, "Interestin' bit bairnies." Boggley,
when young, was of a peculiarly fiery temper. At times one could
hardly look at him without being confronted with squared fists and
being invited to "come on"; but when Miss Elspeth, holding one of his
pugnacious paws in her kind, soft hands, assured him he was the flower
of the flock, and _her_ boy, he was a Samson shorn for mildness.

Speaking pure Lowland Scots, which was a delight to listen to; full
of a gracious hospitality embracing everyone in the district from the
highest to the lowest; fiery politicians and ardent supporters of
their beloved Free Kirk, to the upkeep of which I believe they would
cheerfully have given their last copper, Miss Aitken and Miss Elspeth
were of a type now unhappily almost extinct.

Miss Elspeth was the plain, clever one. "In my youth", she loved to
quote, "in my youth I wasna what you would ca' bonnie, but I was pale,
penetratin', and interestin'."

Miss Aitken had been a beauty, and liked to tell us of the balls she