playing and singing, both in the Scots and in the Italian manners;
this put me more at my ease, and being reminded of Alan's air that
he had taught me in the hole near Carriden, I made so bold as to
whistle a bar or two, and ask if she knew that.

She shook her head. "I never heard a note of it," said she.
"Whistle it all through. And now once again," she added, after I
had done so.

Then she picked it out upon the keyboard, and (to my surprise)
instantly enriched the same with well-sounding chords, and sang, as
she played, with a very droll expression and broad accent -


"Haenae I got just the lilt of it?
Isnae this the tune that ye whustled?"


"You see," she says, "I can do the poetry too, only it won't rhyme.
And then again:


"I am Miss Grant, sib to the Advocate:
You, I believe, are Dauvit Balfour."


I told her how much astonished I was by her genius.

"And what do you call the name of it?" she asked.