en by her daughter Jane,
that aunt of whom Robert Louis Stevenson wrote so sweetly in his
_Child's Garden of Verses_--

'Chief of our Aunts not only I
But all your other nurslings cry,
What did the other children do?
And what were childhood wanting you?'

To other 'motherless bairns,' as well as to her own brothers and
sisters, nephews and nieces, that most motherly heart and gentle and
beautiful soul has been a comfort and a refuge on the thorny highway of
life, and many whose love she has earned by the tenderness of her
sympathy still call Miss Balfour blessed.

She was a true helper to her father in the motherless home and in his
parish work, and in spite of much bad health filled the mother's place
in the house and won for herself the undying affection and regard not
only of her own family but of her father's parishioners and friends.

A testimony to the high esteem in which her father's memory and hers,
and indeed that of all the Balfour family, is still held in Colinton,
was given to me a few years ago by the old beadle there. Fond as he was
of Dr Lockhart, to speak to him of the Balfours, whom he remembered in
his younger days, at once won his attention and regard. On my saying to
him it was for their sakes I wished to see the inside of the church he
queried with a brightening face:

'Ye'll no be ane o' them, will ye?'

'No' was the reply, 'but they have been so long known and loved they
seem like my "ain folk" to me.'

'Aweel come awa' an' see the kirk. Will ye mind o' him?'

Alas! no; for the minister of Colinton had died seven years before my
friendship with the Balfours began.

'Eh!' was all the old man said, but that and the shake of his head
eloquently expressed what a loss that was for me!

'But ye'll ken _her_?' meaning Miss Balfour, he queried again, and as I
said I did and well, the face brightened with a great brightness.

So, having found a friend in common, together we went over the church
and the manse grounds, but, as Dr Lockhart was away from home, I
resisted his persuasion to ask leave to go through the house and
contented myself with a pleasant talk with him of Dr John Balfour, who
had fought the mutineers in India and the cholera at Davidson's Mains,
Slateford, and Leven; of Dr George, who is still fighting the ills that
flesh is heir to, in Edinburgh; of the sons and daughters of the manse
who had gone to their rest; of Mrs Stevenson, then in Samoa with he