The first spinster of whom I have a particular remembrance, as belonging to her caste, was Diana Darling. It is now six and twenty years since Diana paid the debt of nature, up to which period, and for a few years before, she rented a room in Chirnside. It was only a year or two before her death that I became acquainted with her; and I was then very young. But I never shall forget her kindness towards me. She treated me as though I had been her own child, or rather her grandchild, for she was then very little under seventy years of age. She had always an air of gentility about her; people called her "a betterish sort o' body." And, although _Miss_ and _Mistress_ are becoming general appellations now, twenty or thirty years ago, upon the Borders, those titles were only applied to particular persons or on particular occasions; and whether their more frequent use now is to be attributed to the schoolmaster being abroad or the dancing-master being abroad, I cannot tell, but Diana Darling, although acknowledged to be a "betterish sort o' body," never was spoken of by any other term but "auld Diana," or "auld Die." Well do I remember her flowing chintz gown, with short sleeves, her snow-white apron, her whiter cap, and old kid gloves, 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:--