CHAPTER XXV.
Thea West, for such was the pretty name the young girl had made out of her pet name Sweetheart, bounced into the house and flung herself down at the piano, leaving her discomfited lover alone on the porch of his cottage home. In a minute a flood of music poured out through the open windows, and the girl sung sweetly, saucily, cruelly:
“The Laird of Cockpen, he’s proud an’ his great.
His mind is ta’en up wi’ the things o’ the state;
He wanted a wife his braw house to keep,
But favor wi’ wooin’ was fashions to seek.
“He took the gray mare and rode cannilie—
And rapped at the door o’ Clarverse-ha’ Lee,
’Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben;