Balwylie,' and says, with his rich burr rolling in his mouth, and in her ear, 'Awa! awa! the deil's ower grit wi' ye." And the ladies, or, as I prefer calling them, the women of these times, how worthy-how, in scientific phrase, complementary of the men !-meeting them in all common interests half way, neither more nor less, their companions, well read, well bred, free yet refined, full of spirit and sense-with a strong organ of adhesiveness, as our friends the phrenologists would say. I wish we had more, or many of such women now-a-days: women who, with all their gifts and graces, were always womanly in their ways and speech, and as distinct in character each from the other as were the men-as much so as a beech is from a birch, or a lily from a rose. Now our flowers are what are called composite, and too often double, one of the effects of over cultivation. Our men are like larches-if you have seen one you have seen a 1 All the stories about Scott are good. I had one from his attached and grateful friend the late James Russell, that accomplished actor and true gentleman, which is perhaps not generally known. John Kemble was acting in the Edinburgh Theatre, and being out of sorts, played languidly and ill, when suddenly he blazed out into his full power, and went on magnificently to the close. William Murray said to him afterwards, 'How was it that you began so ill and finished so well?' 'Oh!' said Kemble, 'didn't you see? Walter came in ;' and he played up to Walter. thousand, and if you have seen one of his sides, you have seen all the others. Then, while they were not all oaks or Scotch firs, though some were but ash, elm, crab-tree, or thorn as each might be, they had all characters of their own, so that if nature had been reversed, and their minds had become visible and their bodies unseen, no one would have mistaken Lord Newton for Lord Jeffrey, or either for Sir Walter or 'Holmhead.' If this same Mystification were applied to many of our men and women now, how hard to make out who was who, when everybody speaks as well as reads the newspapers, and nothing else. It is one of my best pleasures to know, besides the author of this volume which I have so 'unconscionably' rifled, two who were companions of the men of renown, whose names and work are all that now remain to us. The one to whom Miss Graham so affectionately dedicates her book, was then beautiful and good, shrewd and sincere, gracious and full of grace. She is all these still, and more. She has that wise, deep, gentle goodness which comes from time and sorrow, and a long life of love to man and love to God: were she a modern lady, when our women are too much of everything except women, she would have given us something better than the Cottagers of Glenburnie, and as good as The Inherit And her sister, who again keeps house with ance. her, meaning to end life as they began it, under the same roof, as natural, as unhurt by the world, by custom and by praise, as when they were girls in George Square; had she been a French woman, which I am thankful she was not, she would have been a Madame de Staël, with much of her genius and power, her eloquence and 'large discourse,' her strength of thought, of feeling, and of expression, her public heart, without any of her faults or foibles. She is the only woman I ever knew who is not only eloquent but an orator. She has the gift of great speech, can wield a long sentence like a man, and keep it alive and make it tell—make it sting, or flash, or convince as she desires. With all these great, and as I may call them public powers, she is, like her sister, more of a woman than of all these,truthful, full of sympathy for suffering, indeed her feeling for long-continued bodily pain-a by no means common but very true virtue-I have never known equalled, having herself been too well qualified to be so; full of public spirit, but fuller of private worth and heart. To know such women, to have the privilege of familiar life with them, is of itself, as Steele said, 'a liberal education.' They were worthy to be the wives and companions of Adam Gillies and of Malcolm Laing. I have seen many deaths, but these come vividly into my mind. Mrs. Gillies, after being kept alive for years by keeping her in bed in winter, was dying, and, like her life, her death was gentle. A very short time before it came she took her round, little, embossed gold watch, which she always when awake carried in her shut left hand, with a short black ribbon and its key; collecting her breath and holding out the watch, she said to her sister Mrs. Laing, her life-long companion, 'Take that, Margaret, I am done with Time.' Another fine old lady was dying, and could not lie down. Not many minutes before the end-sitting up-she had heart disease-she caught sight of her own face in a console mirror. She looked steadfastly at herself, then, with a serious smile, gave a nod, as if to say 'good-bye,' and died. A very old man-thoroughbred-a great salmon fisher-a lover of pleasure and of nicety of bodysent for me in the middle of the night: he was fast dying, and knew it-and, with a strange frown said, Doctor, this is a most disgusting process; and, looking to a bottle of laudanum on the mantelpiece, said, 'Give me that, and end it.' I said what any one would say. His anger deepened, and settling himself straight, and setting his mouth, he, by what I believe was a supreme act of the will, ceased to live |