Guards wore little point-lace
cravats and cuffs, and many a night she sat up to have these in such
perfect order that no dandy officer in the service could compete with
the young Scottish soldier. An added happiness to those happy, busy days
came to Grisell through her brother's fellow-guardsman and greatest
friend, for George Baillie, the lad she first met in the Tolbooth, gave
his heart to her that day within the gloomy prison walls, and they were
lovers still when, after forty-eight years of married life, death came
to part them.

With the accession of the Prince of Orange the merry, light-hearted days
in Holland came to an end. There was probably no poorer Scottish family
to be found in all Holland. There was certainly no happier one. When
they came home they were prosperous once again, and honours were
showered upon Sir Patrick Home. Grisell was asked to become a maid of
honour to the Princess but she preferred to go back to the quiet country
life at Redbraes. Already, during their least prosperous days, Grisell's
beauty and charm had made at least two Berwickshire gentlemen "of
fortune and character" beg for her hand, and it was to her parents'
regret that she refused them both, because her heart was already in the
keeping of a penniless guardsman in the Dutch service. Only poverty kept
them apart, and when King William gave back to George Baillie his lands,
there was no other obstacle in the way, and they were married forthwith.
They were man and wife for forty-eight years, "in all of which time,"
writes their daughter, "I have often heard my mother declare that they
never had the shadow of a quarrel, or misunderstanding, or dryness
betwixt them--not for a moment"; and that, "to the last of his life, she
felt the same ardent and tender love and affection for him, and the same
desire to please him in the smallest trifle that she had at their first
acquaintance." To the day his last illness began, her husband never went
out without her going to the window to watch him till he was out of
sight of those kind, bright, beautiful eyes, through which shone as
beautiful a soul as any that ever made the earth a better and a happier
place for having been in it.

Grisell Home was Lady Grisell Baillie when, in 1703, her mother died.

"Where is Grisell," she asked, almost with her latest breath. And when
Lady Grisell came and held her hand the old lady said, "My dear Grisell,
blessed be you above all, for a helpful child you