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wench of a lassie that was to follow them come the term. And who think ye should this lassie be, but Nanse Cromie, afterwards, in the course of a kind providence, the honoured wife of my bosom, and the mother of bonny Benjie.
In going up and down the stairs,—it being a common entry, ye observe—me maybe going down with my every day hat on to my dinner, and she coming up, carrying a stoup of wa'er, or half a-pound of powdered butter on a plate, with a piece of paper thrown over it,— we frequently met half-way, and, had to stand still to let one another pass. Nothing came of these forgetherings, howsomever, for a month or two, she being as shy and modest as she was bonny, with her clean demity short gown, and snow-white morning mutch, to say nothing of her cherry mou, and her glancing eeu; and me uncodonffie in making up to strangers. We could not help, nevertheless, to take aye a stoun look of each other in passing; and I was a gone man, bewitched out of my seven senses, falling from my claes, losing my stomach, and over the lugs in love, three weeks and some odd days before ever a single syllable passed between us.
If ever a man loved, and loved like mad, it was me, Mansie Wauch,—and I take no shame in the confession; but, kenning it all in the course of nature, declare it openly and courageously in the face of the wide world. Let them laugh who like; honest folk, I pity them;—such know not the pleasures of virtuous affection. It is not in corrupted, sinful hearts that the fire of true love can ever burn clear. Alas, and ohon orie! they lose the sweetest, completest, dearest, truest, pleasure that this world has in store for its children. They know not the bless to meet, that makes the embrace of separation bitter. They never dreamed the dreams that make awakening to the morning light unpleasant. They
