Was spick and span new.
And the buttons were burnished with gold.
His neckcloth well puffed.
Which six handkerchiefs stuffed,
And in colour with snow might have vied,
Was put on with great care,
As a bait for the fair,
And the ends in a love-knot were tied," &c. &c.
I greatly enjoyed my visits to this genial-hearted and accomplished lady. No chilling condescensions on her part measured out to me my distance: Miss Dunbar took at once the common ground of literary tastes and pursuits; and if I did not feel my inferiority there, she took care that I should feel it nowhere else. There was but one point on which we differed. While hospitably extending to me every facility for visiting the objects of scientific interest in her neighbourhood—such as those sand-wastes of Culbin in which an ancient barony finds burial, and the geologic sections presented by the banks of the Findhorn—she was yet desirous to fix me down to literature as my proper walk; and I, on the other hand, was equally desirous of escaping into science.