Faint and weak though she appeared, Jeanie Mackie’s waning life spirited up for the occasion; her dim eye kindled; her feeble frame was straight and strong; energy nerved her as she spoke; this hour is the errand of her being.

Long she spoke, and loudly, in her broad Scotch way; and the general objected many things, but was answered to them all; and there was close cross-questioning, slow-caution, keen examination of documents and letters:  catechisms, solecisms, Scottisms; reminiscences rubbed up, mistakes corrected; and the grand result of all, Emily a Stuart, and the general not her father!  I am only enabled to give a brief account of that important colloquy.

It appears, that when Captain Tracy’s company was quartered to the west of the Gwalior, sent thither to guard the Begum Dowlia against sundry of her disaffected subjects, a certain Lieutenant James Stuart was one among those welcome brave allies.  That our gallant Tracy was the beautiful Begum’s favourite soon became notorious to all; and not less so, that the Begum herself was precisely in the same interesting situation as Mrs. James Stuart.  The two ladies, Pagan and Christian, were, technically speaking, running a race together.  Well, just as times drew nigh, poor Lieutenant Stuart was unfortunately killed in an insurrection headed by some fanatics, who disapproved of foreign friends, and perhaps of their princess’s situation.  His death proved fatal also to that kind and faithful wife of his—­a dark Italian lady of high family, whose love for James had led her to follow him even into Central Hindoostan:  she died in giving birth to a babe; and Jeanie Mackie, the lieutenant’s own foster-mother, who waited on his wife through all their travels, assisted the poor orphan into this bleak world, and loved it as her own.

Two days after all this, the Begum herself had need of Mrs. Mackie:  for it was prudent to conceal some things, if she could, from certain Brahmins, who were to her what John Knox had erstwhile been to Mary:  and Jeanie Mackie, burdened with her little Amy Stuart, aided in the birth of a female Tracy-Begum.  So, the nurse tended both babes; and more than once had marvelled at their general resemblance; Amy’s mother looked out again from those dark eyes; there was not a shade between the children.

Now, Mrs. Mackie perceived, in a very little while, how fond both Christian and Pagan appeared of their own child; and how little notice was taken by any body of the poor Scotch gentleman’s orphan.  Accordingly, with a view to give her favourite all worldly advantages, she adroitly changed the children; and, while she was still kind and motherly to the little Tracy-Begum, she had the satisfaction to see her pet supposititiously brought up in all the splendours of an Eastern court.

Years wore away, for Captain Tracy was quite happy, the Begum being a fine showy woman, and the pretty child his playmate and pastime:  so he never cared to stir from his rich quarters, till the company’s orders forced him:  and then Puttymuddyfudgepoor hailed him accumulatively both major and colonel.