together with their total inoffensiveness as regarded the outside world; and we are delighted to say this, for we see so many of the multitudinous sides of human nature dark and depraved, that we are apt to think there is no bright side at all.  Nor shall we let slip the opportunity of saying, at the risk of being considered very simple, that of all the gifts of felicity bestowed, as the Pagan Homer tells, upon mankind by the gods, no one is so perfect and beautiful as the love that exists between a good mother and a good daughter.

For so much we may be safe by having recourse to instinct, which is deeper than any secondary causes we poor mortals can see.  But beyond this, there were special reasons tending to this same result of mutual affection, which come more within the scope of our observation.  In explanation of which, we may say that the mother, having something in her power during her husband’s life, had foreseen the advantages of using it in the instruction of her quick and intelligent daughter in an art of far more importance then than now—­that of artistic, needlework.  Nay, of so much importance was this beautiful art, and to such perfection was it brought at a time when a lady’s petticoat, embroidered by the hand, with its profuse imitations of natural objects, flowers, and birds, and strange devices, would often cost twenty pounds Scots, that a sight of one of those operose achievements of genius would make us blush for our time and the labours of our women.  Nor was the perfection in this ornamental industry a new thing, for the daughters of the Pictish kings confined in the castle were adepts in it; neither was it left altogether to paid sempstresses, for great ladies spent their time in it, and emulation quickened both the genius and the diligence.  So we need hardly say it became to the mother a thing to be proud of, that her daughter Mysie proved herself so apt a scholar that she became an adept, and was soon known as one of the finest embroideresses in the great city.  So, too, as a consequence, it came to pass that great ladies employed her; and often the narrow spiral staircase of Corbet’s Land was brushed on either side by the huge masses of quilted and emblazoned silk that, enveloping the belles of the day, were with difficulty forced up to and down from the small room of the industrious Mysie.

But we are now speaking of art, while we should have more to say (for it concerns us more) of the character of the young woman who was destined to figure in a stranger way than in making beautiful figures on silk.  Mysie was one of a class:  few in number they are indeed, but on that account more to be prized.  Her taste and fine manipulations were but counterparts of qualities of the heart—­an organ to which the pale face, with its delicate lines and the clear liquid eyes, was a suitable index.  The refinement which enabled her to make her imitation of beautiful objects on the delicate material of her work was only