.

There was occasionally a pawky semi-sarcastic humour in the replies of
some of the ladies we speak of, that was quite irresistible, of which I
have from a friend a good illustration in an anecdote well known at the
time. A late well-known member of the Scottish bar, when a youth, was
somewhat of a dandy, and, I suppose, somewhat short and sharp in his
temper. He was going to pay a visit in the country, and was making a
great fuss about his preparing and putting up his habiliments. His old
aunt was much annoyed at all this bustle, and stopped him by the
somewhat contemptuous question, "Whar's this you're gaun, Bobby, that
ye mak sic a grand wark about yer claes?" The young man lost temper, and
pettishly replied, "I'm going to the devil." "'Deed, Robby, then," was
the quiet answer, "ye needna be sae nice, he'll juist tak' ye as
ye are."

Ladies of this class had a quiet mode of expressing themselves on very
serious subjects, which indicated their quaint power of description,
rather than their want of feeling. Thus, of two sisters, when one had
died, it was supposed that she had injured herself by an imprudent
indulgence in strawberries and cream, of which she had partaken in the
country. A friend was condoling with the surviving sister, and,
expressing her sorrow, had added, "I had hoped your sister was to live
many years." To which her relative replied--"Leeve! hoo could she leeve?
she juist felled[58] hersell at Craigo wi' straeberries and 'ream!"
However, she spoke with the same degree of coolness of her own decease.
For when her friend was comforting her in illness, by the hopes that she
would, after winter, enjoy again some of their country spring butter,
she exclaimed, without the slightest idea of being guilty of any
irreverence, "Spring butter! by that time I shall be buttering in
heaven." When really dying, and when friends were round her bed she
overheard one of them saying to another, "Her face has lost its colour;
it grows like a sheet of paper." The quaint spirit even then broke out
in the remark, "Then I'm sure it maun be _broon_ paper." A very
strong-minded lady of the class, and, in Lord Cockburn's language,
"indifferent about modes and habits[59]," had been asking from a lady
the character of a cook she was about to hire. The lady naturally
entered a little upon her moral qualifications, and described her as a
very decent woman; the response to which was, "Oh, d--n her decency; can
she make good coll