ONE day as Burns was walking slowly along the village street in his customary manner, with his eyes bent on the ground, he was met by the Misses Biggar, the daughters of the parish minister. He would have passed without noticing them, if one of the young ladies had not called him by name. She then rallied him on his inattention to the fair sex, in preferring to look towards the inanimate ground, instead of seizing the opportunity afforded him of indulging in the most invaluable privilege of man – that of beholding and conversing with the ladies. “Madam,” said he, “it is a natural and right thing for a man to contemplate the ground, from whence he was taken, and for woman to look upon and observe man, from whom she was taken.”