The next

and prepare her child for his journey. morning she set out on her return to England, just as suspicions were becoming general as to the actual possession of any permission but that of her own free will for her presence in Scotland.

It may be readily imagined that the king waxed wroth at the continued defiance at which his fair subject set him. George I. had been informed of her journey to Scotland, and as he had expressly declared that she must be answerable with her life, if found in his dominions, the greatest caution was necessary, to avoid discovery during the remainder of her stay. Yet, despite all, this brave woman, who, according to the royal declaration, "had given him more anxiety and trouble than any other in Europe," remained perdue" for nearly a fortnight in London, at the end of which time, pursuit having cooled, she embarked with her son for France, whither she arrived in safety. Here she had the happiness of rejoining the man, for whose life she had so energetically and successfully battled; nor is it on record that they were ever again divided. Italy offered a secure retreat to the proscribed pair, and they continued to reside there until the death of Lady Nithsdale, which preceded that of her husband by a few years only. From the lively narrative she has left us of this most exciting event of her life, we can imagine that her reminiscences of that "hair-breadth 'scape," her felicitations on the success of her stratagems, and gratitude to the Providence

which had sustained her, must have been mingled with many a bit of feminine merriment at the king's signal defeat. Her adroitness and ingenuity took by force, what he refused to her earnest prayers. Nor can we believe that, in after-life, she regretted the occasion which had furnished her with a means of proving the intensity of her love, and the pertinacity of her deter mination. The oft-quoted line,

"If she will, she will, you may depend on't,"

would, indeed, have made an excellent motto for the Countess of Nithsdale.

She breathed her last in Rome, a city whose brightest annals of antiquity, her heroic and devoted nature would not have dishonoured.

Helen Walker.

"Accustom your children to a strict attention to Truth, even in the most minute particulars. If a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them: you do not know where deviations from Truth will end."-JOHNSON.

Helen Walker.

(THE JEANIE DEANS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.)

BORN 1710. DIED 1791.

AMONG the Waverley series, there is scarcely any novel so remarkable for pathos and interest as the "Heart of Mid Lothian," certainly none which commands more general admiration. This is as much owing to the simple and striking tale, forming its groundwork, as to the powers of the novelist; and the pleasure afforded by its perusal is enhanced by the circumstance-now pretty generally known-that the heroine is no fictitious personage, nor the recital which has immortalized her name, other than a far from highly coloured narrative of the facts, as they actually occurred.

The main features of the story first came under the notice of a lady, wife of Thomas Goldie, Esq., Commissary of Dumfries, some years after it had occurred.