be thy lot in future years.
I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest,
Lord of thy house and hospitality;
And Grief, uneasy lover! ne'er at rest
But when she sat within the touch of thee.
O too industrious folly!
O vain and causeless melancholy!
Nature will either end thee quite,
Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,
Preserve for thee, by individual right,
A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flock."

And we can imagine Scott, when holding his warm, plump little playfellow
in his arms, repeating that stately friend's lines:--

"Loving she is, and tractable, though wild;
And Innocence hath privilege in her,
To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes
And feats of cunning, and the pretty round
Of trespasses, affected to provoke
Mock chastisement and partnership in play.
And, as a fagot sparkles on the hearth
Not less if unattended and alone
Than when both young and old sit gathered round
And take delight in its activity,
Even so this happy creature of herself
Is all-sufficient; solitude to her
Is blithe society: she fills the air
With gladness and involuntary songs."

But we will let her disclose herself. We need hardly say that all this
is true, and that these letters are as really Marjorie's as was this
light brown hair; indeed, you could as easily fabricate the one as the
other.

There was an old servant--Jeanie Robertson--who was forty years in her
grandfather's family. Marjorie Fleming, or, as she is called in the
letters and by Sir Walter, Maidie, was the last child she kept. Jeanie's
wages never exceeded 3 pounds a year, and when she left service she had
saved 40 pounds. She was devotedly attached to Maidie, rather despising
and ill-using her sister Isabella,--a beautiful and gentle child. This
partiality made Maidie apt at times to domineer over Isabella. "I
mention this," writes her surviving sister, "for the purpose of telling
you an instance of Maidie's generous justice. When only five years old,
when walking in Raith grounds, the two children had run on before, and
old Jeanie remembered they might come too near a dangerous mill-lade.
She called to them to turn back. Maidie heeded her not, rushed all the
faster on, and fell, and would have been lost, had her sister not pulled
her back, saving her life, but tearing her clothes. Jeanie flew on
Isabella to 'give it her' for spoiling her favorite's