It was but a touch--the lightest breath of natural feeling that
broke up the hot crust, that shut down the fountain of tears--Rosa's
voice, tuneful and sad as a nightingale's, chanting the border-lays
she loved so well:

"When I gae out at e'en.
Or walk at morning air,
Ilk rustling bush will seem to say
I used to meet thee there.
Then I'll sit down and cry,
And live beneath the tree.
And when a leaf falls in my lap,
I'll oa' it a word from thee."

She had sung it herself to Frederic the night before he left her,
and as she finished the artless ballad, he took her in his arms and
kissed her.

As he would never do again!

"My darling! my darling!" she cried aloud.

Then the grief-drops came in a flood.






CHAPTER V.