Her temper, her passion, and her “badness” are almost daily confessed and deplored:—­“I will never again trust to my own power, for I see that I cannot be good without God’s assistance—.  I will not trust in my own selfe, and Isa’s health will be quite ruined by me—­it will indeed.”  “Isa has giving me advice, which is, that when I feel Satan beginning to tempt me, that I flea him and he would flea me.”  “Remorse is the worst thing to bear, and I am afraid that I will fall a marter to it.”

Poor dear little sinner!—­Here comes the world again:—­“In my travels I met with a handsome lad named Charles Balfour Esq., and from him I got ofers of marage—­offers of marage, did I say?  Nay plenty heard me.”  A fine scent for “breach of promise”!

This is abrupt and strong:—­“The Divil is curced and all works.  ’Tis a fine work ‘Newton on the profecies.’  I wonder if there is another book of poems comes near the Bible.  The Divil always girns at the sight of the Bible.”  “Miss Potune” (her “simpliton” friend) “is very fat; she pretends to be very learned.  She says she saw a stone that dropt from the skies; but she is a good Christian.”

Here come her views on church government:—­“An Anni-babtist is a thing I am not a member of—­I am a Pisplekan (Episcopalian) just now, and” (O you little Laodicean and Latitudinarian!) “a Prisbeteran at Kirkcaldy”—­(Blandula!  Vagula! coelum et animum mutas quoe trans mare [i.e., trans Bodotriam] curris!)—­“my native town.”

“Sentiment is not what I am acquainted with as yet, though I wish it, and should like to practise it” (!) “I wish I had a great, great deal of gratitude in my heart, in all my body.”  There is a new novel published, named ‘Self-Control’ (Mrs. Brunton’s)—­“a very good maxim forsooth!”

This is shocking:—­“Yesterday a marrade man, named Mr. John Balfour, Esq., offered to kiss me, and offered to marry me, though the man” (a fine directness this!) “was espused, and his wife was present and said he must ask her permission; but he did not.  I think he was ashamed and confounded before 3 gentelman—­Mr. Jobson and 2 Mr. Kings.”  “Mr. Banesters” (Bannister’s) “Budjet is to-night; I hope it will be a good one.  A great many authors have expressed themselves too sentimentally.”  You are right, Marjorie.  “A Mr. Burns writes a beautiful song on Mr. Cunhaming, whose wife desarted him—­truly it is a most beautiful one.”  “I like to read the Fabulous historys, about the histerys of Robin, Dickey, flapsay, and Peccay, and it is very amusing, for some were good birds and others bad, but Peccay was the most dutiful and obedient to her parients.”  “Thomson is a beautiful author, and Pope, but nothing to Shakespear, of which I have a little knolege.  ‘Macbeth’ is a pretty composition, but awful one.”  “The ‘Newgate Calender’ is very instructive.” (!)

“A sailor called here to say farewell; it must be dreadful to leave his native country when he might get a wife; or perhaps me, for I love him very much.  But O I forgot, Isabella forbid me to speak about love.”  This antiphlogistic regimen and lesson is ill to learn by our Maidie, for here she sins again:—­“Love is a very papithatick thing” (it is almost a pity to correct this into pathetic), “as well as troublesome and tiresome—­but O Isabella forbid me to speak of it.”