"Thy spirits have a fainter flow, I see thee daily weaker grow, 'Twas my distress that brought thee low, My Mary! "Thy needles, once a shining store, For my sake restless heretofore, Now rust disused and shine no more, My Mary! "For though thou gladly would'st fulfil The same kind office for me still, Thy sight now seconds not thy will, My Mary! "But well thou play'dst the housewife's part, And all thy threads with magic art, Have wound themselves about this heart, My Mary!" An interesting circumstance connected with needlework is mentioned in the delightful memoir written by lady Murray, of her mother, the excellent and admirable Lady Grisell Baillie. The allusion itself is very slight, merely to the making of a frill or a collar; but the circumstances connected with it are deeply interesting, and place before us a vivid picture of the deprivations of a family of rank and consequence in "troublous times," and moreover offer us a portrait from _real life_ of true feminine excellence, of a young creature of rank and family, of cultivated and refined tastes and of high connexions, utterly forgetting all these in the cheerful and conscientious discharge, for years, of the most arduous and humble duties, and even of menial and revolting offices. It may be that my readers all are not so well acquainted with this little book as ourselves, and, if so, they will not consider the following extract too long. "They lived three years and a half in Holland, and in that time she made a second voyage to Scotland about business. Her father went by the borrowed name of Dr. Wallace, and did not stir out for fear of being discovered, though who he was, was no secret to the wellwishers of the revolution. Their great desire was to have a good house, as their greatest comfort was at home; and all the people of the same way of thinking, of which there were great numbers, were continually with them. They paid for their house what was very extravagant for their income, nearly a fourth part; they could not afford keeping any servant, but a little girl to wash the dishes. "All the time they were there, there was not a week that my mother did not sit up two nights, to do the business that was necessary. She went to market, went to the mill to have the corn ground, which it seems is the way with good managers there, dressed the linen, cleaned the house, made ready the dinner, mended the children's stockings and other clothes, made what she could for them, and, in short, did everything.