CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



of the day. Weeks before, had each of us engaged his 

 partner for the first country dance, by right his own 

 when supper came, and to sit close to him with her 

 tender side, with waist at first stealthily arm-encircled, 

 and at last boldly and almost with proud display. In 

 the churchyard, before or after Sabbath-service, a 

 word whispered into the ear of blooming and blush- 

 ing rustic sufficed; or if that opportunity failed, the 

 angler had but to step into her father's burn-side 

 cottage, and with the contents of his basket leave a 

 tender request, and from behind the gable-end carry 

 away a word, a smile, a kiss, and a waving farewell. 



Many a high-roofed hall have we, since those days, 

 seen made beautiful with festoons and garlands, be- 

 neath the hand of taste and genius decorating, for 

 some splendid festival, the abode of the noble expect- 

 •ing a still nobler guest. But oh! what pure bliss, and 

 what profound, was then breathed into the bosom of 

 boyhood from that glorious branch of hawthorn, in 

 the chimney — itself almost a tree, so thick — so deep 

 — so rich its load of blossoms — so like its fragrance 

 to something breathed from heaven — and so transi- 

 tory in its sweetness too, that as she approached to 

 inhale it, down fell many a snowflake to the virgin's 

 breath — in an hour all melted quite away! No broom 

 that now-a-davs grows on the brae, so yellow as the 

 broom — the golden broom — the broom that seemed 

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