el, weel, some fowk like
parritch and some like paddocks[57]."

Of this older race--the ladies who were, aged, fifty years ago--no
description could be given in bolder or stronger outline than that which
I have quoted from Lord Cockburn. I would pretend to nothing more than
giving a few further illustrative details from my own experience, which
may assist the representation by adding some practical realities to
the picture.

Several of them whom I knew in my early days certainly answered to many
of the terms made use of by his lordship. Their language and expressions
had a zest and peculiarity which are gone, and which would not, I fear,
do for modern life and times.

I have spoken of Miss Erskine of Dun, which is near Montrose. She,
however, resided in Edinburgh. But those I knew best had lived many
years in the then retired society of a country town. Some were my own
relations; and in boyish days (for they had not generally much patience
with boys) were looked up to with considerable awe as very formidable
personages. Their characters and modes of expression in many respects
remarkably corresponded with Lord Cockburn's idea of the race. There was
a dry Scottish humour which we fear their successors do not inherit. One
of these Montrose ladies, Miss Nelly Fullerton, had many anecdotes told
of her quaint ways and sayings. Walking in the street one day, slippery
from frost, she fairly fell down. A young officer with much politeness
came forward and picked her up, earnestly asking her at the same time,
"I hope ma'am, you are no worse?" to which she very drily answered,
looking at him very steadily, "'Deed, sir, I'm just as little the
better." A few days after, she met her military supporter in a shop. He
was a fine tall youth, upwards of six feet high, and by way of making
some grateful recognition for his late polite attention, she eyed him
from head to foot, and as she was of the opinion of the old Scotch lady
who declared she "aye liked bonny fowk," she viewed her young friend
with much satisfaction, but which she only evinced by the quaint remark,
"Od, ye're a lang lad; God gie ye grace."

I had from a relative or intimate friend of two sisters of this school,
well known about Glasgow, an odd account of what it seems, from their
own statement, had passed between them at a country house, where they
had attended a sale by auction. As the business of the day went on, a
dozen of silver spoons had to be disposed of; an