ng forth through a flushed medium, which equally
betrayed the workings of the blood in the transparent veins--a being of
young life, elasticity, and sensitiveness, such as, like some modest
flower, we find only in certain recesses of the valleys in
mountain-lands. Such were you, Alice Scott, when you first darted across
our path on the hills. We have said that we see you now through the
dream of age; and, holding to the parallel, there is a change o'er the
mood of our vision, for we see you again in a form like that of "The
Ladye Geraldine"--your mountain russets off; the bandeau that bound the
flying locks laid aside; the irritability and flush of the young spirit
abated; and, instead of these, the gown of silk, the coif of satin, and
the slow and dignified step of conscious worth and superiority. And
whence this change?

The young female we have thus apostrophised, was the daughter of Adam
Scott, a cottar, who occupied the small cottage of Homestead, under the
proprietor of Whitecraigs--a fine property, lying to the south of the
cottage; and the mansion of which is yet to be seen by the traveller who
seeks the Tweed by the windings of the river Lyne. Old Adam died, and
left his widow and daughter to the protection of his superior, Mr.
Hayston, who, recollecting the services and stanch qualities of his
tenant, did not despise the charge. The small bield was allowed to the
mother and daughter, rent free; and some assistance, in addition to the
produce of their hands, enabled them to live as thousands in this
country live, whose capability of supporting life might be deemed a
problem difficult of solution by those whose only care is how to destroy
God's gifts. Nature is as curious in her disposal of qualities as the
great genius of chance or convention is of the distribution of means.
Literature has worn out the characteristic and gloomy lines of the
description of the fair and the good; and the impatience of the mind of
the nineteenth century--a mind greedy of caricature, and regardless of
written sentiment--may warn us from the portrayment of what people now
like better to see than to read or hear of. Away, then, with the usual
terms, and let old Dame Scott and her daughter be deemed as of those
beings who have interested you in the quiet recesses of humble poverty,
where Nature, as if in sport or satire, loves to play fantastic tricks.
If you have no living models to go by, call up some of the pages of the
thousand vo