"Oh, yes," cried Kate, eagerly, "it is indeed exquisite, but, 'John Anderson, my Joe John,' conveys the idea of true love a great deal more forcibly to my mind."
"Burns," said Lord Effingham, "oh, his detestable jargon is too much for me, and I cannot see the poetry of a ballad, about some stupid old woman, who had been drinking 'usquebaugh,' till she was maudlin, and then proceeds to make love to her 'gude mon,' whose eyes she had probably been scratching out an hour before."
"Oh, shame, shame, to sully the real beauty of the fancy by so base a construction!" returned Kate.
"Kate worships Burns," said Lady Desmond, "she has a print of 'John Anderson,' opposite her bed, that her eyes may light upon it on their first opening in the morning."
"It is a sweet ballad, I think, and has an honesty about it, I like;" observed Dashwood.
"You are right, Colonel Dashwood," said Kate.
"Ah," said Lady Desmond, "you have ruined yourself with Kate, Lord Effingham."
"I hope not; but Miss Vernon must grant Byron's description to be perfect," he replied.
"Yes, but his is the description of 'Woman's Love,' added Lady Desmond, "no man ever felt the tenderness—
'Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime,