When she was about sixteen Miss Brodie left school.  The winters were now spent in Bath, the summers in Scotland.  She had launched into the society of the world, and to a great extent she did as they did.  One reproof she received made a lasting impression.  It was from the lips of a little child who was exceedingly fond of her.  Miss Brodie had joined others in playing cards on the Sabbath.  The next day, contrary to all custom, the child kept away from her, and when asked to sit on her knee, gave a flat refusal, adding the reason, “No, you are bad; you play cards on Sunday.”  Her answer and resolution were ready:  “I was wrong, I will not do it again.”  And those who heard her and knew her character were quite sure she would not do it again.

II.

MARCHIONESS OF HUNTLY.

Elizabeth Brodie was still very young when she entered upon the duties and trials of married life.  Between the house of Brodie and the house of Gordon there had been a standing feud.  About the middle of the seventeenth century the youthful and impetuous Lord Lewis Gordon had made a raid upon the property of the Laird of Brodie.  He burned to the ground the mansion and all that was connected with it, the family escaping to the house of a cousin.  This Lewis Gordon became third Marquis of Huntly, and was the ancestor of one who made a better conquest, the gallant Marquis of Huntly, who sought and won the hand of Miss Brodie.  They were married at Bath on the 11th of December, 1813.  The union thus formed was never afterwards regretted.  When, fifteen years later, he experienced great losses of property, his sorrow found expression in these words, “All things are against me:  I’ve been unfortunate in everything, except a good wife.”  What that wife did for him in spiritual as well as temporal comfort, the sequel will show.

The Marquis of Huntly was a thorough man of the world at the time of his marriage.  And for a time his wife joined him in the fashionable circle in which he found his chief pleasure.  Both in London and in Geneva, where they spent the greater part of the first portion of their married life, she became very popular.  But she soon realised that true joys were not to be found in the mere attractions of society.  For some years her life cannot be described otherwise than as unprofitable.  One instrument used by God for her awakening was a Highland servant.  This girl was grieved to see that the interest of her mistress was absorbed by the things of time, which left no room for the contemplation of the things of eternity.  She ventured to make a wise and well-weighed remark.  It was a word fitly spoken, and did not fail in its purpose.  The young lady’s eyes were further opened by what she saw of the sins of the worldly circle in which she moved.  She began to realise the sentiment of her ancestor, the good Lord Brodie:—­“God can make use of poison to expel poison:  in London I saw much