Discusses the mention in two Burns letters, unannotated by editors, of a 'poor, young' woman poet, whose manuscripts Burns was revising for the press in the spring and early summer of 1789; considers and rejects suggestions that she might have been Janet Little or Helen Maria Williams; and suggests instead as a possible candidate Rebekah Carmichael, whom he had met in Edinburgh during the winter of 1786-87, and whose book Poems (Edinburgh: for the Author, 1790) was published by Burns's friend Peter Hill.