54 ARDENMOHR. 



Hid in the coral grottoes of the deep 

 A home of silence and unbroken sleep. 



" Prodigious ! " exclaimed the Major on finishing 

 the rhyme ; " and sentimental too, Hope ; yet very 

 reasonable rhyme and reason : besides, it would be 

 hard to deny a private room to your friends who 

 keep open house for public griefs and joys in their 

 sympathies, eh ? " 



" Even should it, Major, be like the maister's room 

 you spoke of as being common in Scotch country 

 houses, and the wors ^-furnished room in the house," 

 said Ward, laughing. 



" Ex-actly, mon eher ; for, analogous to your mind's 

 private room, the master's retreat is sacred to quiet 

 and fancy, and free from bothering advisers." 



"You dry Scotch quiz, you have no pity for 

 delusions." 



" I suspect," I remarked, "that delusions fill the 

 pleasantest corners in one's mind, and that Burns 

 only half considered when he wrote 



' Oh wad some power the giftie gie u& 

 To see ourselves as others see us.' 



Individually, it would be far from a pleasing giftie ; 

 but had Kobbie written gie THEM, and not gie us, 



