To Mrs Frances Anna Dunlop of Dunlop

                             Mossgeil, 29th February 1788

Madam,

I send you with this, Spencer, as I promised.- and I already “rejoice with them that do rejoice” in anticipating the pleasure you will have in the fairy mazes of enchanted ground.- I return Belisarious to Miss Fanny, with my grateful thanks for one of the most glorious entertainments I ever enjoyed.- By the way, I suppose that hare-brain’d lady, Coila, is now about to move ”in all the majesty of light.”-

I think Miss Keith said she had never seen Gray’s Poems; I send her a copy of them, which I beg she will do me the honor to accept of.-

The few days I have to spend at home are so hurried that I can only write a letter like a merchant’s Order, and for some months to come yet, it must be so,; but I look forward to the time when I shall have got into the routine of life, and then a correspondence with one or two friends will be, I hope, a great source of my happiness.- Allow me Madam, to remind you of something like a promise of your continued favours in this way.- this, I assure you in the Presbyterian style, I ask of grace not of debt.

My most respectful compliments to your two young ladies.-

                             I have the honor to be, Madam,
                                      Your highly oblidged humble servant
                                                          Robt Burns