[Footnote 3: "Her Bible is before me; _a pair_, as then called; the
faded marks are just as she placed them. There is one at David's lament
over Jonathan."]

"I have to ask you to forgive my anxiety in gathering up the fragments
of Marjorie's last days, but I have an almost sacred feeling to all that
pertains to her. You are quite correct in stating that measles were the
cause of her death. My mother was struck by the patient quietness
manifested by Marjorie during this illness, unlike her ardent, impulsive
nature; but love and poetic feeling were unquenched. When Dr. Johnstone
rewarded her submissiveness with a sixpence, the request speedily
followed that she might get out ere New Year's day came. When asked why
she was so desirous of getting out, she immediately rejoined, 'O, I am
so anxious to buy something with my sixpence for my dear Isa Keith.'
Again, when lying very still, her mother asked her if there was anything
she wished: 'O yes! if you would just leave the room-door open a wee bit,
and play "The Land o' the Leal," and I will lie and _think_, and enjoy
myself' (this is just as stated to me by her mother and mine). Well, the
happy day came, alike to parents and child, when Marjorie was allowed to
come forth from the nursery to the parlor. It was Sabbath evening, and
after tea. My father, who idolized this child, and never afterwards in
my hearing mentioned her name, took her in his arms; and, while walking
her up and down the room, she said, 'Father, I will repeat something to
you; what would you like?' He said, 'Just choose yourself, Maidie.' She
hesitated for a moment between the paraphrase, 'Few are thy days, and
full of woe,' and the lines of Burns already quoted, but decided on the
latter, a remarkable choice for a child. The repeating these lines
seemed to stir up the depths of feeling in her soul. She asked to be
allowed to write a poem; there was a doubt whether it would be right to
allow her, in case of hurting her eyes. She pleaded earnestly, 'Just
this once'; the point was yielded, her slate was given her, and with
great rapidity she wrote an address of fourteen lines, 'to her loved
cousin on the author's recovery,' her last work on earth;--

'Oh! Isa, pain did visit me;
I was at the last extremity:
How often did I think of you,
I wished your graceful form to view,
To clasp you in my weak embrace,
Indeed I thought I'd run my race:
Good care, I'm sure, was of me taken