the sweetest saint in all the throng; King David riding towards
Drumsheugh forest on Holy Rood day, with his horns and hounds and
huntsmen following close behind; Anne of Denmark and Jingling
Geordie; Mary Stuart in all her girlish beauty, with the four Maries
in her train; and lurking behind, Bothwell, `that ower sune
stepfaither,' and the murdered Rizzio and Darnley; John Knox, in his
black Geneva cloak; Bonnie Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald;
lovely Annabella Drummond; Robert the Bruce; George Heriot with a
banner bearing on it the words `I distribute chearfully'; James I.
carrying The King's Quair; Oliver Cromwell; and a long line of
heroes, martyrs, humble saints, and princely knaves.

Behind them, regardless of precedence, came the Ploughman Poet and
the Ettrick Shepherd, Boswell and Dr.Johnson, Dr.John Brown and
Thomas Carlyle, Lady Nairne and Drummond of Hawthornden, Allan
Ramsay and Sir Walter; and is it not a proof of the Wizard's magic
art, that side by side with the wraiths of these real people walked,
or seemed to walk, the Fair Maid of Perth, Jeanie Deans, Meg
Merrilies, Guy Mannering, Ellen, Marmion, and a host of others so
sweetly familiar and so humanly dear that the very street-laddies
could have named and greeted them as they passed by?



Chapter IV. Susanna Crum cudna say.



Life at Mrs. M'Collop's apartments in 22 Breadalbane Terrace is
about as simple, comfortable, dignified, and delightful as it well