ored. If I
have been able to do any thing in the way of painting the past times, it
is very much from the studies with which she presented me. She was a
strict economist, which, she said, enabled her to be liberal. Out of her
little income of about fifteen hundred dollars a year, she bestowed at
least a third in charities; yet I could never prevail on her to accept
of any assistance." Her charity, as well as her love for genealogy, and
her aptitude for story-telling, was transmitted to her son. It found
expression in him, not only in material gifts to the poor, but in a
conscientious care and consideration for the feelings of others. This
trait is beautifully exhibited by many of the facts recorded by Lockhart
in his famous memoir, and also by a little incident, not included there,
which I have heard Sir Henry Taylor tell, and which, besides
illustrating the subject, deserves for its own sake a place in print.
The great and now venerable author of "Philip Van Artevelde" dined at
Abbotsford only a year or two before the close of its owner's life. Sir
Walter had then lost his old vivacity, though not his simple dignity;
but for one moment during the course of the evening he rose into
animation, and it happened thus: There was a talk among the party of an
excursion which was to be made on the following day, and during the
discussion of the plans Miss Scott mentioned that two elderly maiden
ladies, living in the neighborhood, were to be of the number, and hinted
that their company would be a bore. The chivalrous kindliness of her
father's heart was instantly aroused. "I can not call that
good-breeding," he said, in an earnest and dignified tone--a rebuke
which echoed the old-fashioned teaching on the duties of true politeness
he had heard from his mother half a century before.

We would gladly know more than we do of Mrs. Scott's attitude toward her
son when first his _penchant_ for authorship was shown. That she smiled
on his early evidences of talent, and fostered them, we may well
imagine; and the tenderness with which she regarded his early
compositions is indicated by the fact that a copy of verses, written in
a boyish scrawl, was carefully preserved by her, and found, after her
death, folded in a paper on which was inscribed, "My Walter's first
lines, 1782." That she gloried in his successes when they came, we
gather; for when speaking late in life to Dr. Davy about his brother Sir
Humphrey's distinction, Sir Walter,