nd standing
sheepishly before her, began to say his lesson, which happened to
be,--"Ziccotty, diccotty, dock, the mouse ran up the clock; the clock
struck one, down the mouse ran, ziccotty, diccotty, dock." This done
repeatedly till she was pleased, she gave him his new lesson, gravely
and slowly, timing it upon her small fingers,--he saying it after her,--

"Wonery, twoery, tickery, seven;
Alibi, crackaby, ten and eleven;
Pin, pan, musky dan;
Tweedle-um, twoddle-um, twenty-wan;
Eerie, orie, ourie,
You, are, out."

He pretended to great difficulty, and she rebuked him with most comical
gravity, treating him as a child. He used to say that when he came to
Alibi Crackaby he broke down, and Pin-Pan, Musky-Dan, Tweedle-um
Twoddle-um made him roar with laughter. He said Musky-Dan especially was
beyond endurance, bringing up an Irishman and his hat fresh from the
Spice Islands and odoriferous Ind; she getting quite bitter in her
displeasure at his ill behavior and stupidness.

Then he would read ballads to her in his own glorious way, the two
getting wild with excitement over 'Gil Morrice' or the 'Baron of
Smailholm'; and he would take her on his knee, and make her repeat
Constance's speech in 'King John,' till he swayed to and fro, sobbing
his fill....

Scott used to say that he was amazed at her power over him, saying to
Mrs. Keith, "She's the most extraordinary creature I ever met with, and
her repeating of Shakespeare overpowers me as nothing else does."

Thanks to the unforgetting sister of this dear child, who has much of
the sensibility and fun of her who has been in her small grave these
fifty and more years, we have now before us the letters and journals of
Pet Marjorie,--before us lies and gleams her rich brown hair, bright and
sunny as if yesterday's, with the words on the paper, "Cut out in her
last illness," and two pictures of her by her beloved Isabella, whom she
worshiped; there are the faded old scraps of paper, hoarded still, over
which her warm breath and her warm little heart had poured themselves;
there is the old water-mark, "Lingard, 1808." The two portraits are very
like each other, but plainly done at different times; it is a chubby,
healthy face, deep-set, brooding eyes, as eager to tell what is going on
within as to gather in all the glories from without; quick with the
wonder and the pride of life; they are eyes that would not be soon
satisfied with seeing; eye