Spare Hours

I have made this letter much too long, and have said many things in it I never intended saying, and omitted much I had hoped to be able to say. But I must end.

Yours ever affectionately,

J. Brown.

“MYSTIFICATIONS.”

 
“Health to the auld wife, and weel mat she be,
That busks her fause rock wi’ the lint o’ the lee (lie),
Whirling her spindle and twisting the twine,
Wynds aye the richt pirn into the richt line.”
 

“MYSTIFICATIONS.”³²

Those who knew the best of Edinburgh society eight-and-thirty years ago – and when was there ever a better than that best? – must remember the personations of an old Scottish gentlewoman by Miss Stirling Graham, one of which, when Lord Jeffrey was victimized, was famous enough to find its way into Blackwood, but in an incorrect form.

Miss Graham’s friends have for years urged her to print for them her notes of these pleasant records of the harmless and heart-easing mirth of bygone times; to this she has at last assented, and the result is this entertaining, curious, and beautiful little quarto, in which her friends will recognize the strong understanding and goodness, the wit and invention, and fine pawky humor of the much-loved and warmhearted representative of Viscount Dundee – the terrible Clavers.³³ They will recall that blithe and winning face, sagacious and sincere, that kindly, cheery voice, that rich and quiet laugh, that mingled sense and sensibility, which all met, and still, to our happiness, meet in her, who, with all her gifts and keen perception of the odd, and power of embodying it, never gratified her consciousness of these powers, or ever played

 
“Her quips and cranks and wanton wiles,”
 

so as to give pain to any human being.

The title of this memorial is Mystifications, and in the opening letter to her dear kinswoman and life-long friend, Mrs. Gillies, widow of Lord Gillies, she thus tells her story: —

Duntrune, April 1859.

My Dearest Mrs. Gillies,

To you and the friends who have partaken in these “Mystifications,” I dedicate this little volume, trusting that, after a silence of forty years, its echoes may awaken many agreeable memorials of a society that has nearly passed away.

I have been asked if I had no remorse in ridiculing singularities of character, or practising deceptions; – certainly not.

There was no personal ridicule or mimicry of any living creature, but merely the personation or type of a bygone class, that had survived the fashion of its day.

It was altogether a fanciful existence, developing itself according to circumstances, or for the amusement of a select party, among whom the announcement of a stranger lady, an original, led to no suspicion of deception. No one ever took offence: indeed it generally elicited the finest individual traits of sympathy in the minds of the dupes, especially in the case of Mr. Jeffrey, whose sweet-tempered kindly nature manifested itself throughout the whole of the tiresome interview with the law-loving Lady Pitlyal.

No one enjoyed her eccentricities more than he did, or more readily devised the arrangement of a similar scene for the amusement of our mutual friends.

The cleverest people were the easiest mystified, and when once the deception took place, it mattered not how arrant the nonsense or how exaggerated the costume. Indeed, children and dogs were the only detectives.

I often felt so identified with the character, so charmed with the pleasure manifested by my audience, that it became painful to lay aside the veil, and descend again into the humdrum realities of my own self.

These personations never lost me a friend; on the contrary, they originated friendships that cease only with life.

The Lady Pitlyal’s course is run; she bequeaths to you these reminiscences of beloved friends and pleasant meetings.

And that the blessing of God may descend on “each and all of you,” is the fervent prayer of her kinswoman and executrix,

CLEMENTINA STIRLING GRAHAM.

I now beg to “convey,” as Pistol delicately calls it, or as we on our side the Border would say, to “lift,” enough of this unique volume to make my readers hunger for the whole.

MRS. RAMSAY SPELDIN

Another evening Miss Guthrie requested me to introduce my old lady to Captain Alexander Lindsay, a son of the late Laird of Kinblethmont, and brother to the present Mr. Lindsay Carnegie, and Mr. Sandford, the late Sir Daniel Sandford.

She came as a Mrs. Ramsay Speldin, an old sweetheart of the laird’s, and was welcomed by Mrs. Guthrie as a friend of the family. The young people hailed her as a perfectly delightful old lady, and an original of the pure Scottish character, and to the laird she was endeared by a thousand pleasing recollections.

He placed her beside himself on the sofa, and they talked of the days gone by – before the green parks of Craigie were redeemed from the muir of Gotterston, and ere there was a tree planted between the auld house of Craigie and the Castle of Claypotts.

She spoke of the “gude auld times, when the laird of Fintry widna gie his youngest dochter to Abercairney, but tell’d him to tak them as God had gien them to him, or want.”

“And do you mind,” she continued, “the grand ploys we had at the Middleton; and hoo Mrs. Scott of Gilhorn used to grind lilts out o’ an auld kist to wauken her visitors i’ the mornin’.

“And some o’ them didna like it sair, tho’ nane o’ them had courage to tell her sae, but Anny Graham o’ Duntrune.

“‘Lord forgie ye,’ said Mrs. Scott, ‘ye’ll no gae to heaven, if ye dinna like music;’ but Anny was never at a loss for an answer, and she said, ‘Mrs. Scott – heaven’s no the place I tak it to be, if there be auld wives in ’t playing on hand-organs.’”

Many a story did Mrs. Ramsay tell. The party drew their chairs close to the sofa, and many a joke she related, till the room rung again with the merriment, and the laird, in ecstasy, caught her round the waist, exclaiming “Oh! ye are a canty wifie.”

The strangers seemed to think so too; they absolutely hung upon her, and she danced reels, first with the one, and then with the other, till the entrance of a servant with the newspapers produced a seasonable calm.

They lay, however, untouched upon the table till Mrs. Ramsay requested some one to read over the claims that were putting in for the King’s coronation, and see if there was any mention of hers.

“What is your claim?” said Mr. Sandford.

“To pyke the King’s teeth,” was the reply.

“You will think it very singular,” said Mr. Guthrie, “that I never heard of it before; will you tell us how it originated?”

“It was in the time of James the First,” said she, “that monarch cam to pay a visit to the monks of Arbroath, and they brought him to Ferryden to eat a fish dinner at the house o’ ane o’ my forefathers. The family name, ye ken, was Spelden, and the dried fish was ca’d after them.

“The king was well satisfied wi’ a’ thing that was done to honor him. He was a very polished prince, and when he had eaten his dinner he turned round to the lady and sought a preen to pyke his teeth.

“And the lady, she took a fish bane and wipit it, and gae it to the king; and after he had cleaned his teeth wi’ it, he said, ‘They’re weel pykit.’

“And henceforth, continued he, the Speldins of Ferryden shall pyke the king’s teeth at the coronation. And it shall be done wi’ a fish-bone, and a pearl out o’ the Southesk on the end of it. And their crest shall be a lion’s head wi’ the teeth displayed, and the motto shall be weel pykit.”

Mr. Sandford read over the claims, but there was no notice given of the Speldins.

 

“We maun just hae patience,” said Mrs. Ramsay, “and nae doubt it will appear in the next newspaper.”

Some one inquired who was the present representative?

“It’s me,” replied Mrs. Ramsay Speldin; “and I mean to perform the office mysel’. The estate wad hae been mine too, had it existed; but Neptune, ye ken, is an ill neighbor, and the sea has washed it a’ away but a sand bunker or twa, and the house I bide in at Ferryden.”

At supper every one was eager to have a seat near Mrs. Ramsay Speldin. She had a universal acquaintance, and she even knew Mr. Sandford’s mother, when he told her that her name was Catherine Douglas. Mr. Sandford had in his own mind composed a letter to Sir Walter Scott, which was to have been written and despatched on the morrow, giving an account of this fine specimen of the true Scottish character whom he had met in the county of Angus.

We meant to carry on the deception next morning, but the laird was too happy for concealment. Before the door closed on the good-night of the ladies, he had disclosed the secret, and before we reached the top of the stairs, the gentlemen were scampering at our heels like a pack of hounds in full cry.

Here are at random some extracts from the others: —

Mr. Jeffrey now inquired what the people in her part of the country thought of the trial of the Queen. She could not tell him, but she would say what she herself had remarked on siclike proceedings: “Tak’ a wreath of snaw, let it be never so white, and wash it through clean water, it will no come out so pure as it gaed in, far less the dirty dubs the poor Queen has been drawn through.”

Mr. Russell inquired if she possessed any relics of Prince Charles from the time he used to spin with the lasses: —

“Yes,” she said, “I have a flech that loupit aff him upon my aunty, the Lady Brax, when she was helping him on wi’ his short-gown; my aunty rowed it up in a sheet of white paper, and she keepit it in the tea canister, and she ca’d it aye the King’s Flech; and the laird, honest man, when he wanted a cup of gude tea, sought aye a cup of the Prince’s mixture.” This produced peals of laughter, and her ladyship laughed as heartily as any of them. When somewhat composed again, she looked across the table to Mr. Clerk, and offered to let him see it. “It is now set on the pivot of my watch, and a’ the warks gae round the flech in place of turning on a diamond.”

Lord Gillies thought this flight would certainly betray her, and remarked to Mr. Clerk that the flea must be painted on the watch, but Mr. Clerk said he had known of relics being kept of the Prince quite as extraordinary as a flea; that Mr. Murray of Simprim had a pocket-handkerchief in which Prince Charles had blown his nose.

The Lady Pitlyal said her daughter did not value these things, and that she was resolved to leave it as a legacy to the Antiquarian Society.

Holmehead was rather amused with her originality, though he had not forgotten the attack. He said he would try if she was a real Jacobite, and he called out, “Madam, I am going to propose a toast for ye!

“May the Scotch Thistle choke the Hanoverian Horse.”

“I wish I binna among the Whigs,” she said.

“And whare wad ye be sae weel?” retorted he.

“They murdered Dundee’s son at Glasgow.”

“There was nae great skaith,” he replied; “but ye maun drink my toast in a glass of this cauld punch, if ye be a true Jacobite.”

“Aweel, aweel,” said the Lady Pitlyal; “as my auld friend Lady Christian Bruce was wont to say, ‘The best way to get the better of temptation is just to yield to it;’” and as she nodded to the toast and emptied the glass, Holmehead swore exultingly – “Faith, she’s true!”

Supper passed over, and the carriages were announced. The Lady Pitlyal took her leave with Mrs. Gillies.

Next day the town rang with the heiress of Pitlyal. Mr. W. Clerk said he had never met with such an extraordinary old lady, “for not only is she amusing herself, but my brother John is like to expire, when I relate her stories at second-hand.”

He talked of nothing else for a week after, but the heiress, and the flea, and the rent-roll, and the old turreted house of Pitlyal, till at last his friends thought it would be right to undeceive him; but that was not so easily done, for when the Lord Chief-Commissioner Adam hinted that it might be Miss Stirling, he said that was impossible, for Miss Stirling was sitting by the old lady the whole of the evening.

Here is a bit of Sir Walter —

Turning to Sir Walter, “I am sure you had our laird in your e’e when you drew the character of Monkbarns.”

“No,” replied Sir Walter, “but I had in my eye a very old and respected friend of my own, and one with whom, I daresay you, Mrs. Arbuthnott, were acquainted – the late Mr. George Constable of Wallace, near Dundee.”

“I kenned him weel,” said Mrs. Arbuthnott, “and his twa sisters that lived wi’ him, Jean and Christian, and I’ve been in the blue-chamber of his Hospitium; but I think,” she continued, “our laird is the likest to Monkbarns o’ the twa. He’s at the Antiquarian Society the night, presenting a great curiosity that was found in a quarry of mica slate in the hill at the back of Balwylie. He’s sair taken up about it, and puzzled to think what substance it may be; but James Dalgetty, wha’s never at a loss either for the name or the nature of onything under the sun, says it’s just Noah’s auld wig that blew aff yon time he put his head out of the window of the ark to look after his corbie messenger.”

James Dalgetty and his opinion gave subject of much merriment to the company, but Doctor Coventry thought there was nothing so very ludicrous in the remark, for in that kind of slate there are frequently substances found resembling hairs.

Lord Gillies presented Doctor Coventry to Mrs. Arbuthnott, as the well-known professor of agriculture, and they entered on a conversation respecting soils. She described those of Balwylie, and the particular properties of the Surroch Park, which James Dalgetty curses every time it’s spoken about, and says, “it greets a’ winter, and girns a’ simmer.”

The doctor rubbed his hands with delight, and said that was the most perfect description of cold wet land he had ever heard of; and Sir Walter expressed a wish to cultivate the acquaintance of James Dalgetty, and extorted a promise from Mrs. Arbuthnott that she would visit Abbotsford, and bring James with her. “I have a James Dalgetty of my own,” continued Sir Walter, “that governs me just as yours does you.”

Lady Ann and Mr. Wharton Duff and their daughter were announced, and introduced to Mrs. Arbuthnott.

At ten, Sir Walter and Miss Scott took leave, with a promise that they should visit each other, and bending down to the ear of Mrs. Arbuthnott, Sir Walter addressed her in these words: “Awa! awa! the deil’s ower grit wi’ you.”

And now are we not all the better for this pleasantry? so womanly, so genial, so rich, and so without a sting, – such a true diversion, with none of the sin of effort or of mere cleverness; and how it takes us into the midst of the strong-brained and strong-hearted men and women of that time! what an atmosphere of sense and good-breeding and kindliness! And then the Scotch! cropping out everywhere as blithe, and expressive, and unexpected as a gowan or sweet-briar rose, with an occasional thistle, sturdy, erect, and bristling with Nemo me. Besides the deeper and general interest of these Mystifications, in their giving, as far as I know, a unique specimen of true personation – distinct from acting – I think it a national good to let our youngsters read, and, as it were, hear the language which our gentry and judges and men of letters spoke not long ago, and into which such books as Dean Ramsay’s and this are breathing the breath of its old life. Was there ever anything better or so good, said of a stiff clay, than that it “girns (grins) a’ simmer, and greets (weeps) a’ winter?”

“OH, I’M WAT, WAT!”

The father of the Rev. Mr. Steven of Largs, was the son of a farmer, who lived next farm to Mossgiel. When a boy of eight, he found “Robbie” who was a great friend of his, and of all the children, engaged digging a large trench in a field, Gilbert, his brother, with him. The boy pausing on the edge of the trench, and looking down upon Burns, said, “Robbie, what’s that ye’re doin’?” “Howkin’ a muckle hole, Tammie.” “What for?” “To bury the Deil in, Tammie!” (one can fancy how those eyes would glow.) “A’but, Robbie,” said the logical Tammie, “hoo’re ye to get him in?” “Ay” said Burns, “that’s it, hoo are we to get Him in!” and went off into shouts of laughter; and every now and then during that summer day shouts would come from that hole, as the idea came over him. If one could only have daguerreotyped his day’s fancies!

“OH, I’M WAT, WAT!”

“What is love, Mary?” said Seventeen to Thirteen, who was busy with her English lessons.

“Love! what do you mean, John?”

“I mean, what’s love?”

“Love’s just love, I suppose.”

(Yes, Mary, you are right to keep by the concrete; analysis kills love as well as other things. I once asked a useful-information young lady what her mother was. ‘Oh, mamma’s a biped!’ I turned in dismay to her younger sister, and said, What do you say? ‘Oh, my mother’s just my mother.’)

“But what part of speech is it?”

“It’s a substantive or a verb.” (Young Horne Tooke didn’t ask her if it was an active or passive, an irregular or defective verb; an inceptive, as calesco, I grow warm, or dulcesco, I grow sweet; a frequentative or a desiderative, as nupturio, I desire to marry.)

“I think it is a verb,” said John, who was deep in other diversions, besides those of Purley; “and I think it must have been originally the Perfect of Live, like thrive throve, strive strove.”

“Capital, John!” suddenly growled Uncle Oldbuck, who was supposed to be asleep in his arm-chair by the fireside, and who snubbed and supported the entire household. “It was that originally, and it will be our own faults, children, if it is not that at last, as well as, ay, and more than at first. What does Richardson say, John? read him out.” John reads —

Love-locks, – locks (of hair) to set off the beauty; the loveliness.

A. S. Luf-ian; D. Lie-ven; Ger. -ben, amare, diligere. Wach. derives from lieb, bonum, because every one desires that which is good: lieb, it is more probable, is from lieb-en, grateful, and therefore good. It may at least admit a conjecture that A. S. Lufian, to love, has a reason for its application similar to that of L. Di-ligere (legere, to gather), to take up or out (of a number), to choose, sc. one in preference to another, to prefer; and that it is formed upon A. S. Hlif-ian, to lift or take up, to pick up, to select, to prefer, Be- Over- Un-

Uncle impatiently.– “Stuff; ‘grateful!’ ‘pick up! stuff! These word-mongers know nothing about it. Live, love; that is it, the perfect of live.”³⁴

After this, Uncle sent the cousins to their beds.

Mary’s mother was in hers, never to rise from it again. She was a widow, and Mary was her husband’s niece. The house quiet, Uncle sat down in his chair, put his feet on the fender, and watched the dying fire; it had a rich central glow, but no flame, and no smoke, it was flashing up fitfully, and bit by bit falling in. He fell asleep watching it, and when he slept, he dreamed. He was young; he was seventeen; he was prowling about the head of North St. David Street, keeping his eye on a certain door, – we call them common stairs in Scotland. He was waiting for Mr. White’s famous English class for girls coming out. Presently out rushed four or five girls, wild and laughing; then came one, bounding like a roe:

 
“Such eyes were in her head,
And so much grace and power!”
 

She was surrounded by the rest, and away they went laughing, she making them always laugh the more. Seventeen followed at a safe distance, studying her small, firm, downright heel. The girls dropped off one by one, and she was away home by herself, swift and reserved. He, imposter as he was, disappeared through Jamaica Street, to reappear and meet her, walking as if on urgent business, and getting a cordial and careless nod. This beautiful girl of thirteen was afterwards the mother of our Mary, and died in giving her birth. She was Uncle Oldbuck’s first and only sweetheart; and here was he, the only help our young Horne Tooke, and his mother and Mary had. Uncle awoke, the fire dead, and the room cold. He found himself repeating Lady John Scott’s lines —

 
“When thou art near me,
Sorrow seems to fly,
And then I think, as well I may,
That on this earth there is no one
More blest than I.
 
 
But when thou leav’st me,
Doubts and fears arise,
And darkness reigns,
Where all before was light.
The sunshine of my soul
Is in those eyes,
And when they leave me
All the world is night.
 
 
But when thou art near me,
Sorrow seems to fly,
And then I feel, as well I may,
That on this earth there dwells not one
So blest as I.”³⁵
 

Then taking down Chambers’s Scottish Songs, he read aloud: —

 
“O I’m wat, wat,
O I’m wat and weary;
Yet fain wad I rise and rin,
If I thocht I would meet my dearie.
Aye waukin’, O!
Waukin’ aye, and weary;
Sleep, I can get nane
For thinkin’ o’ my dearie.
 
 
Simmer’s a pleasant time,
Flowers o’ every color;
The winter rins ower the heugh,
And I long for my true lover.
 
 
When I sleep I dream,
When I wauk I’m eerie,
Sleep I can get nane,
For thinkin’ o’ my dearie.
 
 
Lanely nicht comes on,
A’ the lave are sleepin’;
I think on my true love,
And blear my e’en wi’ greetin’.
 
 
Feather beds are saft —
Pentit rooms are bonnie;
But ae kiss o’ my dear love
Better’s far than ony.
 
 
O for Friday nicht! —
Friday at the gloamin’;
O for Friday nicht —
Friday’s lang o’ comin’!”
 

This love-song, which Mr. Chambers gives from recitation, is, thinks Uncle to himself, all but perfect; Burns, who in almost every instance, not only adorned, but transformed and purified whatever of the old he touched, breathing into it his own tenderness and strength, fails here, as may be seen in reading his version.

 
“Oh, spring’s a pleasant time!
Flowers o’ every color —
The sweet bird builds her nest,
And I lang for my lover.
Aye wakin’, oh!
Wakin’ aye and wearie;
Sleep I can get nane,
For thinkin’ o’ my dearie!
 
 
“When I sleep I dream,
When I wauk I’m eerie,
Rest I canna get,
For thinkin’ o’ my dearie.
 
 
Aye wakin’, oh!
Wakin’ aye and weary;
Come, come, blissful dream,
Bring me to my dearie.
 
 
“Darksome nicht comes doun —
A’ the lave are sleepin’;
I think on my kind lad,
And blin’ my een wi’ greetin’.
Aye wakin’, oh!
Wakin’ aye and wearie;
Hope is sweet, but ne’er
Sae sweet as my dearie!”
 

How weak these italics! No one can doubt which of these is the better. The old song is perfect in the procession, and in the simple beauty of its thoughts and words. A ploughman or shepherd – for I hold that it is a man’s song – comes in “wat, wat” after a hard day’s work among the furrows, or on the hill. The watness of wat, wat, is as much wetter than wet as a Scotch mist is more of a mist than an English one; and he is not only wat, wat, but “weary,” longing for a dry skin and a warm bed and rest; but no sooner said and felt, than, by the law of contrast, he thinks on “Mysie” or “Ailie,” his Genevieve; and then “all thoughts, all passions, all delights,” begin to stir him, and “fain wad I rise and rin” (what a swiftness beyond run is “rin”!) Love now makes him a poet; the true imaginative power enters and takes possession of him. By this time his clothes are off, and he is snug in bed; not a wink can he sleep; that “fain” is domineering over him, – and he breaks out into what is as genuine passion and poetry, as anything from Sappho to Tennyson – abrupt, vivid, heedless of syntax. “Simmer’s a pleasant time.” Would any of our greatest geniuses, being limited to one word, have done better than take “pleasant?” and then the fine vagueness of “time!” “Flowers o’ every color;” he gets a glimpse of “herself a fairer flower,” and is off in pursuit. “The water rins ower the heugh” (a steep precipice); flinging itself wildly, passionately over, and so do I long for my true lover. Nothing can be simpler and finer than

 
“When I sleep, I dream;
When I wauk, I’m eerie.”
 

“Lanely nicht;” how much richer and touching than “darksome.” “Feather beds are saft;” “paintit rooms are bonnie;” I would infer from this, that his “dearie,” his “true love,” was a lass up at “the big house” – a dapper Abigail possibly – at Sir William’s at the Castle, and then we have the final paroxysm upon Friday nicht – Friday at the gloamin’! O for Friday nicht! – Friday’s lang o’ comin’! – it being very likely Thursday before daybreak, when this affectionate ululatus ended in repose.

Now, is not this rude ditty, made very likely by some clumsy, big-headed Galloway herd, full of the real stuff of love? He does not go off upon her eyebrows, or even her eyes; he does not sit down, and in a genteel way announce that “love in thine eyes forever sits,” &c. &c., or that her feet look out from under her petticoats like little mice: he is far past that; he is not making love, he is in it. This is one and a chief charm of Burns’ love-songs, which are certainly of all love-songs except those wild snatches left to us by her who flung herself from the Leucadian rock, the most in earnest, the tenderest, the “most moving delicate and full of life.” Burns makes you feel the reality and the depth, the truth of his passion; it is not her eyelashes or her nose, or her dimple, or even

 
“A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I’ the bottom of a cowslip,”
 

that are “winging the fervor of his love;” not even her soul; it is herself. This concentration and earnestness, this perfervor of our Scottish love poetry, seems to me to contrast curiously with the light, trifling philandering of the English; indeed, as far as I remember, we have almost no love-songs in English, of the same class as this one, or those of Burns. They are mostly either of the genteel, or of the nautical (some of these capital), or of the comic school. Do you know the most perfect, the finest love-song in our or in any language; the love being affectionate more than passionate, love in possession not in pursuit?

 
“Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast
On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
My plaidie to the angry airt,
I’d shelter thee, I’d shelter thee:
Or did Misfortune’s bitter storms
Around thee blaw, around thee blaw,
Thy bield should be my bosom,
To share it a’, to share it a’.
 
 
“Or were I in the wildest waste,
Sae black and bare, sae black and bare,
The desert were a paradise,
If thou wert there, if thou wert there:
Or were I monarch o’ the globe,
Wi’ thee to reign, wi’ thee to reign,
The brightest jewel in my crown
Wad be my queen, wad be my queen.”
 

The following is Mr. Chambers’ account of the origin of this song: – Jessy Lewars had a call one morning from Burns. He offered, if she would play him any tune of which she was fond, and for which she desired new verses, that he would do his best to gratify her wish. She sat down at the piano, and played over and over the air of an old song, beginning with the words —

 
“The robin cam’ to the wren’s nest,
And keekit in, and keekit in:
‘O weel’s me on your auld pow!
Wad ye be in, wad ye be in?
Ye’ se ne’er get leave to lie without,
And I within, and I within,
As lang ’s I hae an auld clout,
To row ye in, to row ye in.’”
 

Uncle now took his candle, and slunk off to bed, slipping up noiselessly that he might not disturb the thin sleep of the sufferer, saying in to himself – “I’d shelter thee, I’d shelter thee;” “If thou wert there, if thou wert there;” and though the morning was at the window, he was up by eight, making breakfast for John and Mary.

Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away; but love is of God, and cannot fail.