March 31.—­The Ballantynes and Cadell left us in high spirits, expecting much from the new undertaking, and I believe they are not wrong.  As for me, I became torpid after a great influx of morning visitors.

    “I grew vapourish and odd,
      And would not do the least right thing,
    Neither for goddess nor for god—­
      Nor paint nor jest nor laugh, nor sing.”

I was quite reluctant to write letters, or do anything whatsoever, and yet I should surely write to Sir Cuthbert Sharp and Surtees.  We dined alone.  I was main stupid, indeed, and much disposed to sleep, though my dinner was very moderate.

FOOTNOTES: 

[142] Oldham—­“Lines addressed to a friend about to leave the University.”—­Poems and Translations, 8vo.  Lond. 1694.

[143] On the 20th April Moore writes to Scott:  “I am delighted you do not reject my proffered dedication, though between two such names as yours and Byron’s I shall but realise the description in the old couplet of Wisdom and Wit,

‘With folly at full length between.’

However, never mind; in cordial feeling and good fellowship I flatter myself I am a match for either of you.”

[144] By Mrs. Centlivre.

[145] See Life, vol. viii. p. 257 n.

[146] Miss Graham tells us in her Mystifications (Edin. 1864) that Sir Walter, on leaving the room, whispered in her ear, “Awa, awa, the Deil’s ower grit wi’ you.”  “To meet her in company,” wrote Dr. John Brown half a century later, when she was still the charm and the delight as well as the centre of a large circle of friends, “one saw a quiet, unpretending, sensible, shrewd, kindly little lady; perhaps you would not remark anything extraordinary in her, but let her put on the old lady; it was as if a warlock spell had passed over her; not merely her look but her nature was changed:  her spirit had passed into the character she represented; and jest, quick retort, whimsical fancy, the wildest nonsense flowed from her lips, with a freedom and truth to nature which appeared to be impossible in her own personality.”

With this faculty for satire and imitation, Miss Graham never used it to give pain.  She was as much at home, too, with old Scotch sayings as Sir Walter himself.  For example, speaking of a field of cold, wet land she said, “It grat a’ winter and girned a’ simmer,” and of herself one morning at breakfast when she thought she was getting too much attention from her guests (she was at this time over ninety) she exclaimed, “I’m like the bride in the old song:—­

‘Twa were blawing at her nose And three were buckling at her shoon.’”

Miss Graham’s friends will never forget the evenings they have spent at 29 Forth Street, Edinburgh, or their visits at Duntrune, where the venerable lady died in her ninety-sixth year in September 1877.