"Clean and caller, wi' a fit like the hinney bee," she continned.

"I was aye big and buirdly, ye maun understand; a bonny figure o' a woman, though I say it that suldna--built to rear bairns--braw bairns they suld hae been, and grand I would hae likit it! But I was young, dear, wi' the bonny glint o' youth in my e'en, and little I dreamed I'd ever be tellin' ye this, an auld, lanely, rudas wife! Weel, Mr.Erchie, there was a lad cam' courtin' me, as was but naetural.

Mony had come before, and I would nane o' them.

But this yin had a tongue to wile the birds frae the lift and the bees frae the foxglove bells.

Deary me, but it's lang syne! Folk have dee'd sinsyne and been buried, and are forgotten, and bairns been born and got merrit and got bairns o' their ain.