ers to the East, whom she had wished to see, a true
'_Montagnarde de Ecossaise_.' The name of the authoress is not given;
but it will, we daresay, be recognised in the neighbourhood of the
'capital of the Highlands' as that of a delicately nurtured lady, the
daughter of a late distinguished physician, well known to the north of
the Grampians as an able and upright man, who, had he not so
sedulously devoted himself to the profession which he adorned, might
have excelled in almost any department of science. And in strong sound
sense and genial feeling, we find the daughter worthy of such a
father. Some of our more zealous Protestants professed at one time not
a little alarm lest the lady nurses might be Papists in disguise; and
certainly their 'regulation dresses,' all cut after one fashion, and
of one sombre hue, did seem a little nun-like, and perhaps rather
alarming. But the following passage--which, from the amusing mixture
which it exhibits of strong good sense and half-indignant womanly
feeling, our readers will, we are sure, relish--may serve to show that
some of the ladies who wore the questionable dress, liked it quite as
ill as the most zealous member of the Reformation Society could have
done, and were very excellent Protestants under its cover. The
authoress of the volume before us is a Presbyterian; and the occasion
of the following remarks was the meeting of the British Consul at
Marseilles, and the necessity that herself and her companions felt of
getting head-dresses for themselves, that could be looked at ere
entertaining him at dinner. 'Perhaps it may be thought,' says our
authoress, 'that all this solicitude about our caps was unsuitable in
persons going out as what is called "Sisters of Mercy;" but I must
once for all say that, as far as I was concerned, I neither professed
to be a "Sister of Charity," a "Sister of Mercy," nor anything of the
kind. I was, as I told a _poissarde_ of Boulogne, a British woman who
had little to do at home, and wished to help our poor soldiers, if I
could, abroad. The reason given to me for the peculiarity and
uniformity of our dress was, that the soldiers might know and respect
their nurses. It seems a sensible reason, and one which I could not
object to, even disliking, as I did, all peculiarity of attire that
seemed to advertise the nurses only as serving God, or serving Him
pre-eminently, and thus conveying a tacit reproach to the rest of the
world; for the obligation l