theme of her discourse, the subject of her thoughts, and ruler of her
actions. The last time she mentioned you was a few hours before all
sense save that of suffering was suspended, when she said to Dr.
Johnstone, 'If you let me out at the New Year, I will be quite
contented.' I asked her what made her so anxious to get out then. 'I
want to purchase a New Year's gift for Isa Keith with the sixpence you
gave me for being patient in the measles; and I would like to choose it
myself.' I do not remember her speaking afterwards, except to complain
of her head, till just before she expired, when she articulated, 'O
mother! mother!'"

* * * * *

Do we make too much of this little child, who has been in her grave in
Abbotshall Kirkyard these fifty and more years? We may of her
cleverness,--not of her affectionateness, her nature. What a picture the
_animosa infans_ gives us of herself,--her vivacity, her passionateness,
her precocious love-making, her passion for nature, for swine, for all
living things, her reading, her turn for expression, her satire, her
frankness, her little sins and rages, her great repentances! We don't
wonder Walter Scott carried her off in the neuk of his plaid, and played
himself with her for hours.

The year before she died, when in Edinburgh, she was at a Twelfth Night
Supper at Scott's, in Castle Street. The company had all come,--all but
Marjorie. Scott's familiars, whom we all know, were there,--all were
come but Marjorie; and all were dull because Scott was dull. "Where's
that bairn? what can have come over her? I'll go myself and see." And he
was getting up, and would have gone; when the bell rang, and in came
Duncan Roy and his henchman Tougald, with the sedan chair, which was