O' Gordon? The young daughter of the house of Rodes is lowered from the walls of the burning castle, and the cruel Gordon spears transfix her as she falls. She lies dead, in her budding girlhood, at the feet of her father's foe, and his heart is strangely stirred and troubled when he looks at her childish face.
"O bonnie, bonnie was hir mouth,
And cherry were hir cheiks,
And clear, clear was hir yellow hair,
Whereon the reid bluid dreips.
"Then wi' his spear he turned hir owre,
O gin hir face was wan!
He sayd, 'You are the first that eir
I wisht alive again.'
"He turned hir owre and owre again,
O gin hir skin was whyte!
'I might hae spared that bonnie face
To hae been sum man's delyte.'"
It is pleasant to know that the ruthless butcher was promptly pursued and slain for his crime, but it is finer still to realize that brief moment of bitterness and shame. I have sometimes thought that Rossetti's Sister Helen would have gained in artistic beauty if, after those
