“Eh,” cried Mrs. Melder, “hasna she come uncommon fast on? but I wish ye would speak to Jacky Morison, Miss Anne, she’s learning the bairn nonsense ballants and—”
“He shall be like a tree that grows,
Near planted by a river,”
burst out Lilie triumphantly.
“Which in his season yields his fruit,
And his leaf fadeth never.
And all he doth shall prosper well—”
The child paused—accomplished the next three lines with prompting, and then made a stop.
“Lilie no mind now—Lilie show you the tree.”
Anne suffered herself to be drawn out—the tree which Lilie fancied must be the one meant in the Psalm, was an oak which stood upon a swelling hillock close by the Oran. When they came near, the child’s wandering attention was caught by some carving on the rude and gnarled trunk.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Anne read it, wonderingly:
“Norman R. R. Marion L.”