ves, reaching to her
elbows; and as well do I remember how she took one of the common _blue
cakes_ which washer-women use, and tying it up in a piece of woollen
cloth, dipped it in water, and daubed it round and round the walls of
her room, to give them the appearance of being papered. I have often
heard of and seen _stenciling_ since; but, rude as the attempt was, I am
almost persuaded that Diana was the first who put it in practice. To
keep up gentility putteth people to strange shifts, and often to
ridiculous ones--and to both of these extremities she was driven. But I
have hinted that she was a kind-hearted creature; and, above all, do I
remember her for the fine old ballads which she sang to me. But there
was one that was an especial favourite with her, and a verse of which,
if I remember correctly, ran thus--

"Fie, Lizzy Lindsay!
Sae lang in the mornins ye lie,
Mair fit ye was helping yer minny
To milk a' the ewes and the kye."

Diana, however, was a woman of some education; and to a relative she
left a sort of history of her life, from which the following is an
extract:--

"My father died before I was eighteen (so began Diana's narrative), and
he left five of us--that is, my mother, two sisters, a brother, and
myself--five hundred pounds a-piece. My sisters were both younger than
me; but, within six years after our father's death, they both got
married; and my brother, who was only a year older than myself, left the
house also, and took a wife, so that there was nobody but me and my
mother left. Everybody thought there was something very singular in
this; for it was not natural that the youngest should be taken and the
auldest left; and, besides, it was acknowledged that I was the best
faured,[C] and the best tempered in the family; and there could be no
dispute but that my siller was as good as theirs.

[C] Best-looking, or most beautiful.

I must confess, however, that, when I was but a lassie o' sixteen, I had
drawn up wi' one James Laidlaw--but I should score out the word _one_,
and just say that I had drawn up wi' _James Laidlaw_. He was a year, or
maybe three, aulder than me, and I kenned him when he was just a laddie,
at Mr. Wh----'s school in Dunse; but I took no notice o' him then in
particular, and, indeed, I never did, until one day that I was an errand
down by Kimmerghame, and I met James just coming out frae the gardens.
It was the summer season, and he had a posie in