'O James Laidlaw!' cried I, when I was left to mysel, 'what hae ye brought me to! My sisters dinna look after me. My parting wi' them has gien them an excuse to forget that I exist. My brother is far frae me, and he is ruled by a wife; and I hae been robbed by another o' the little that I had. I am like a withered tree in a wilderness, standing its lane--I will fa' and naebody will miss me. I am sick, and there are none to haud my head. My throat is parched and my lips dry, and there are none to bring me a cup o' water. There is nae _living thing_ that I can ca' mine. And some day I shall be found a stiffened corpse in my bed, with no one near me to close my eyes in death or perform the last office of humanity! For I am alone--I am by myself--I am forgotten in the world; and my latter years, if I have a long life, will be a burden to strangers.'" But Diana Darling did not so die. Her gentleness, her kindness, caused her to be beloved by many who knew not her history; and, when the last stern messenger came to call her hence, many watched with tears around her bed of death, and many more in sorrow followed her to the grave. So ran the few leaves in the diary of a spinster--and the reader will forgive our interpolations. GEORDIE WILLISON, AND THE HEIRESS OF CASTLE GOWER. Antiquaries know very well that one of the oldest of the Nova Scotia knights, belonging to Scotland, was Sir Marmaduke Maitland of Castle Gower, situated in one of the southern counties of the kingdom; but they may not know so well that Sir Marmaduke held his property under a strict entail to heirs male, whom failing, to heirs female, under the condition of bearing the arms and name of the Castle Gower family; or that he was married to Catherine Maxwell, a near relative of the family of Herries, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright--a person of no very great beauty, but sprightly, and of good manners. This woman had been brought up in France, and was deeply tinged with French feelings. She had French cooks and French milliners about her in abundance; and a French lackey was considered by her as indispensable as meat and drink. Then she was represented as being a proud, imperious woman, with a bad temper; which was rendered worse by her continued fretting, in consequence of not having any children to her husband; whereby the property would go away to a son of her husband's brother. Sir Marmaduke and his lady had a town-house in Edinburgh, in which they lived for the greater part of the year, situated so as to look to the North Back of the Canongate, and with an entry to it from that street, but the principal gate was from the north side. A garden was attached to the house; and the stables and coach-houses were situated at the foot of the garden. All these premises are now removed; but Sir Marmaduke Maitland's house--or, as it was styled, the Duke's house--at the period of this story, was a very showy house, and very well known to the inhabitants of Edinburgh.