distinction of manner were he- Mr Andrew Lang has said reditary, was educated to the that all men who read Rob point of real learning, was Roy become innocent rivals merry, witty, generous the of Francis Osbaldistone. But Egeria of how many ! And that is not really true. Broadly now it would appear that the speaking, it is only the man of impression left with her con- the world who is allured by temporaries had been one which the Dianas of life. Thornthe Austrian grande dame could cliff, John, Richard, and Wilonly hear of with mixed emo- liam Osbaldistone, sullenly tions. She had been intro- writhing under the lash of duced to the vast public of their cousin's wit, are exemthe famous author as a hoyden plars of the male resentful, with her hair tumbled down : because suffering from what, enchanting as were the out in the strange language of the lines and colouring of the pic- moment, must be called the ture, that could not fail to inferiority complex. Jane wound spiritual vanity a little. Anne, looking inscrutably be

“A vision It was a tween her narrowed eyelids at young lady, the loveliness of the diligent reader, wondered, whose very striking features no doubt, if her girlish tongue was enhanced by the anima- had really been so reminiscent tion of the chase and the glow of scorpions, and if poor dear of the exercise, mounted on a Walter Scott had himself been beautiful horse, jet black. ... stung, for the criticism with She wore, what was then some- which his admiration for his what unusual, a coat, vest, heroine was peppered did seem and hat, resembling those of a to betray latent irritation. man, which fashion has since Who would have looked for called a riding-habit. Her long such bitter satire from a creablack hair streamed on the ture so young and so exquisbreeze, having in the hurry itely beautiful. of the chase escaped from the “She threw me the rein as ribbon which bound it. Some if we had been acquainted very broken ground, through from our childhood, jumped which she guided her horse from her saddle, and tripped with the most admirable ad- across the courtyard . : . leavdress and presence of mind, ing me astonished at the overretarded her course and brought frankness of her manner. her closer to me. I had, "A singular and giddy girl, therefore, a full view of her whose communications were uncommonly fine face and per- made with injudicious frankson, to which an inexpressible ness.' charm was added by the wild It needed a perfectly temgaiety of the scene and the pered sense of humour to learn romance of her singular address on one's death-bed that one and unexpected appearance." hadn't been without blemish VOL. CCXVI.—NO. MCCCX.

a

in the eyes of the half-fledged playful despotism, again shaded law student whose genius one off into melancholy and serious had fostered so untiringly, and feeling, to lead me back her with whose love - affairs one willing subject on her own had so nobly bored oneself. hard terms." It was

now fully explained And when their troubled why its author had never sent youth was over and their marRob Roy travelling to Styria. ried life was of the past, Francis

“ A mettle quean ”—80 Rob Osbaldistone wrote :Roy Macgregor labelled Miss “You know how long and Vernon. “The rose of the happily I lived with Diana. wilderness, the heath-bell of You know how I lamented Cheviot,” was the toast of her. But you do not-cannot Justice Inglewood.

know, how much she deserved

her husband's sorrow.” " And let her health go round, around,

around,

The heroine of the novel died And let her health go round; in tranquil old age, in the For though your stockings be of silk, Your knees near kiss the ground, those she loved around her.

country of her birth, with aground, aground.”

The novelist had come to an She's a wild slip that,” end of his rousing tale, and unctuously pronounced Andrew would tie up the ends neatly, Fairservice. But she was as others of his trade since, and Greek and Latin scholar, spoke without subservience to the the languages of modern Eur- unescapable domination of charope, was acquainted with their acter over destiny. Countess literature, and was grounded von Purgstall, making impartial in philosophy, mathematics, and survey from her hillock of astronomy. As she said of pillows of her own far away herself :

young womanhood, knew that, “I assure you there has given herself, and all that had been some pains taken in my gone to the making of herself, education, although I can the circumstances of her own neither sew a tucker, nor work last years and of her dying cross-stitch, nor, as the vicar's hour were an inevitability, fat wife, with as much truth her own death on that account as elegance, goodwill, and pol- was better 'art' than that iteness, was pleased to say in of Mrs Francis Osbaldistone. my behalf, do any other useful We are what biology has thing in the varsal world.” made us, and in the veins of

“Witchery was her lover's Jane Anne Cranstoun there explanation of her dominion rioted some of the most turbuover him.

lent blood in Scotland. “It cost her but a change Her father, George Cranof look and tone, from that stoun, was the youngest son of real and haughty resent- of the fifth Lord Cranstounment to that of kind and a peerage named after the lands

in Midlothian appointed by the most famous soldiers of charters of David II. and his time. George Cranstoun's Robert II. to Thomas of Cran- own grandmother was Anne, stoun. Since 1170, when the daughter of Sir Alexander Don name of Elfric de Cranstoun of Newtown, and his mother appears in the charter of the was Lady Jean Ker, whose Abbey of Holyrood, the Cran- family ramifications occupy four stouns had passed into the and a half of the pages of Mr race by their marriages the Burke. She bore her husband characteristics of many a vigor- twelve children, and George ous family. The first known Cranstoun, her seventh son, ancestress was Janet, daughter married Miss Maria Brisbane of Sir Walter Scott of Buc- of Brisbane in Ayrshire, whose cleuch, Warden of the Middle mother had been a NicholMarches, knighted at Flodden, son of Carnock. It will be and done to death by the Kerrs realised that when the hour in Edinburgh High Street. The came that their daughter with Cranstoun wives, as usually her superfluity of quarterings occurred in those centuries, must seek the suffrages of the were invariably the daughters Austrian Court, Jane Anne was of neighbours, and there is an able to ruffle it there serenely. Elizabeth Johnstone of Elphin- But that hour did not strike stone, and Margaret, who was until she was nearly forty years one of the Ramsays of Dal- of age, and it may be said at housie, a family for ever pro- once that of her childhood and testing against the domination young girlhood nothing is of the English-raiding, cap- known, for few family letters turing castles,—and persisting have been preserved. Inferas soldiers and sailors and ences have to be made, and statesmen ever since. The next the first is that as the fourth marriage to Barbara Gray of of five surviving children of Foulis brought into relation- the seventh son of a race that ship the Ogilvys and the Ruth- had known attainder of what vens and their agitated back- had never been great possesgrounds; and William, third sions, Jane Anne was not reared Lord Cranstoun, who was taken in luxury. Who was in the prisoner with King Charles at impecunious Scotland of that the battle of Worcester and date! There is no hint that imprisoned in the Tower, had her father belonged to any for mother Lady Elizabeth profession, nor where the chilStewart, daughter of the last dren were born, nor where and ill-begotten Earl of Both- brought up. Affirmation can well, and for wife Lady Mary only begin round about the year Leslie, who could trace royal 1790, by which time her father descent from Ludwig of Hun- was dead, her mother was liv. gary who died 1270, and who ing in her native county of was herself daughter of one of Ayr, her elder sister Margaret

now

was married to a prosperous cradle, and what it proclaims laird there, Cunninghame of is not a habit of dejection, but Lainshaw, and her younger a habit of impatience. The sister Helen was the wife of summer sun was shining, the Dugald Stewart of Catrine, world was wide and glowing, Professor of Moral Philosophy and she was cooped up in a in the University of Edin- street—the domestic exchequer burgh, who had been tutor possibly providing holiday jourto her cousin Lord Lothian. neying for brother George but That the married sisters did not for herself, and the arrangetheir best to supply Jane Anne ments made by and insisted with a husband too is the safest on by herself indubitably ; but of surmises, and it is also pretty not amusing on that account. safe to assert that when the Was anything-romanticism younger brother, George Cran- and buoyancy apart-funda

stoun, began to attend the mentally very amusing ! It classes of the Professor of Civil was not amusing to be poor, Law in Edinburgh, and Jane and quite as bored with houseAnne,

rising thirty,' hold drudgery as Diana of the established herself with him novel. George Cranstoun goes in a tiny flat in Frederick on a visit to his closest friend Street, the Cranstoun family Thomas Thomson at his home at large purred a sort of at the manse of Dailly. secondary approval of this Thomson has spoilt George present solution of existence sadly; he cannot get a shirt for her.

washed so that he is able to Frederick Street what a

wear it, nor anything done as cage! But the caged is some- it was done at Dailly," writes times the most startling mem- the sister gaily. We can beber of a community. One has lieve that she was not an exbut to recall a parrot dominat- pert in the art of rufiling shirts, ing a drab household from its and can almost hear her inperch in the window to recog- vective as she stands at the nise that. And their sardonic task; and that she was in any antipathy to all dowdiness of way meticulous as a housemind and of appearance gives keeper is extremely unlikely. the essence of parrot-hood to You cannot keep open house the Diana-Janes of life.

on very small means without “ This here place is very a good deal of laisser faire, and dull," wrote Miss Cranstoun the Frederick Street flat had from Edinburgh to Walter Scott its continuous guests. Mrs Macat Montrose during the summer Cunn 1 says :vacation of 1790. It is the “ The intellectual centre of lively proclamation of one who Edinburgh society was the was never dull even in her home-an old belated country

" Mrs

1 “Sir Walter Scott's Friends' Published by Blackwood.