aye thinkin' o' my ain min' as gin it were in some geometrical shape
or ither, whiles ane an' whiles anither; and syne I try to draw
lines an' separate this power frae that power, the memory frae the
jeedgement, an' the imagination frae the rizzon; an' syne I try to
pit them a' thegither again in their relations to ane anither. And
this aye takes the shape o' some proposition or ither, generally i'
the second beuk. It near-han' dazes me whiles. I fancy gin' I
understood the pairts o' the sphere, it would be mair to the
purpose; but I wat I wish I were clear o't a'thegither."

Hugh had had some experiences of a similar kind himself, though not
at all to the same extent. He could therefore understand her.

"You must just try to keep the things altogether apart," said he,
"and not think of the two sciences at once."

"But I canna help it," she replied. "I suppose you can, sir, because
ye're a man. My father can understan' things ten times better nor
me an' my mother. But nae sooner do I begin to read and think about
it, than up comes ane o' thae parallelograms, an' nothing will
driv't oot o' my head again, but a verse or twa o' Coleridge or
Wordsworth."

Hugh immediately began to repeat the first poem of the latter that
occurred to him:

"I wandered lonely as a cloud."

She listened, walking along with her eyes fixed on the ground; and
when he had finished, gave a sigh of delight and relief--all the