n, and died at a good
old age in the house in which she had been born--the remains of which,
we have only to add, for the edification of the curious, may be seen
until this day.

THE CRADLE OF LOGIE.

It is not very easy, when we consider the great desire manifested by
authors and editors to serve up piquant dishes of fiction on the broad
table of literature, to account for the fact that the undoubtedly true
story of the Cradle of Logie and the Indian Princess, as she is often
called, should never have appeared in print. It has apparently escaped
the sharpest eyes of our chroniclers. Sir Walter Scott did not appear to
have much fancy for Angus; but it would seem that the facts of this
strange occurrence in a civilised country, and not very far back, had
never reached him. Even the histories of Forfarshire are silent; and the
pictures of Scotland for tourists, which generally seize on any romantic
trait connected with a locality or an old ruin, have also overlooked
them. Yet the principal personage in the drama was one whose name was
for years in the mouths of the people, not only for peculiarities of
character, but retribution of fate; and this local fame has died away
only within a comparatively recent period. It was in my very early years
that I saw the Cradle, and heard, imperfectly, its tale from my mother;
but her account was comparatively meagre. I sought long for details; nor
was I by any means successful till I fell in with a man named Aminadab
Fairweather, a resident at the Scouring Burn, in Dundee, who was in the
habit of frequenting Logie House, and who, though very old, remembered
many of the circumstances.

The truth is, there were rich flesh-pots in Logie House--richer than
those which supplied the muscles of the Theban mummies, so enduring
through long ages, no doubt, from being so well fed; for Mr. Fletcher of
Lindertes,[*] who was proprietor of the mansion, was the greatest
epicurean and glossogaster that ever lived since Leontine
times. Then a woman called Jenny McPherson, who had in early
life, like "a good Scotch louse," who "aye travels south," found her way
from Lochaber to London, where she had got into George's kitchen, and
learned something better than to make sour kraut, was the individual who
administered to her master's epicureanism, if not gulosity. Nay, it was
said she had a hand in the tragedy of the Cradle; but, however that may
be, it is certain she was deep in the confidences