“The casawary is an curious bird, and so is the gigantic crane, and the pelican of the wilderness, whose mouth holds a bucket of fish and water. Fighting is what ladies is not qualyfied for, they would not make a good figure in battle or in a duel. Alas! we females are of little use to our country. The history of all the malcontents as ever was hanged is amusing.” Still harping on the Newgate Calendar! “Braehead is extremely pleasant to me by the companie of swine, geese, cocks, etc., and they are the delight of my soul.” “I am going to tell you of a melancholy story. A young turkie of 2 or 3 months old, would you believe it, the father broke its leg, and he killed another! I think he ought to be transported or hanged.” “Queen Street is a very gay one, and so is Princes Street, for all the lads and lasses, besides bucks and beggars parade there.” “I should like to see a play very much, for I never saw one in all my life, and don’t believe I ever shall; but I hope I can be content without going to one. I can be quite happy without my desire being granted.” “Some days ago Isabella had a terrible fit of the toothake, and she walked with a long nightshift at dead of night like a ghost, and I thought she was one. She prayed for nature’s sweet restorer--balmy sleep--but did not get it--a ghostly figure indeed she was, enough to make a saint tremble. It made me quiver and shake from top to toe. Superstition is a very mean thing and should be despised and shunned.” Here is her weakness and her strength again:--“In the love-novels all the heroines are very desperate. Isabella will not allow me to speak about lovers and heroins, and ’tis too refined for my taste.” “Miss Egward’s (Edgeworth’s) tails are very good, particularly some that are very much adapted for youth (!) as Laz Laurance and Tarelton, False Keys, etc. etc.” “Tom Jones and Grey’s Elegey in a country churchyard are both excellent, and much spoke of by both sex, particularly by the men.” Are our Marjories now-a-days better or worse because they cannot read Tom Jones unharmed? More better than worse; but who among them can repeat Gray’s Lines on a distant prospect of Eton College as could our Maidie? Here is some more of her prattle: “I went into Isabella’s bed to make her smile like the Genius Demedicus” (the Venus de Medicis) “or the statute in an ancient Greece, but she fell asleep in my very face, at which my anger broke forth, so that I awoke her from a comfortable nap. All was now hushed up again, but again my anger burst forth at her biding me get up.” She begins thus loftily:-- “Death the righteous love to see, But from it doth the wicked flee.” Then suddenly breaks off as if with laughter,-- “I am sure they fly as fast as their legs can carry them!” “There is a thing I love to see,-- That is, our monkey catch a flee!”