be obtained, was sometimes adopted.' And
the editor of the memoir before us--Alexander Bethune, the brother and
biographer of John--relates that he recollects seeing her engaged in
reaping, on one occasion, when in her eighty-second year; and that on
the same field her favourite nephew the poet, at that time a boy of
ten, was also essaying the labours of the harvest. In one of the
simple but touching epistles which we owe to her singularly acquired
accomplishment of writing--a letter to one of her daughters--we find
her thus expressing herself:--

'We finished our harvest last Monday, and here again I have cause for
thankfulness. I would desire to be doubly thankful to God for enabling
my old and withered arms to use the sickle almost as well as they were
wont to do when I was young, and for the favourable weather and
abundant crop which in His mercy He has bestowed on us. But, my dear
child, there is in very deed a more important harvest before us. Oh!
may God, for Christ's sake, ripen us by the sunshine of His Spirit for
the sickle of death, and stand by us in that trying hour, that we may
be cut down as a shock of corn which is fully ripe.'

Annie survived twelve years longer; for her life was prolonged
through three full generations. 'In the intervals of domestic duty,
her book and her pen were her constant companions.' 'The process of
committing her thoughts to paper was rendered tedious, latterly, by
the weakness and tremor of her hand; and her mind not unfrequently
outran her pen, leaving blanks in her composition, which she did not
always detect so as to enable her to fill them up. And this
circumstance sometimes rendered her meaning a little obscure. But
with all these deficiencies, her letters were generally appreciated by
those to whom they were addressed. Her conversation, too, was much
sought after by serious individuals in all ranks in society; and
occasionally it was pleasing to see the promiscuous visitors who met
in her lowly cottage laying aside for a time the fastidious
distinctions of birth and station, and humbly uniting in the
exercise of Christian love.' At length she could no longer leave
her bed: 'her hearing was so much impaired, that it was with the
greatest difficulty she could be made to understand what was said to
her; and those friends who came to visit her were frequently
requested to sit down by her bedside, where she might see their
faces, though she could no longer enjoy their conver