Records of a Girlhood

darkened the sky above my head and pelted me with large drops of ominous warning. On one side of the road the iron gate and lodge of some gentleman's park suggested shelter; and the h

rain rang merrily on the gravel walk before the door, and

er into it were some remnants of shabby, broken toys, among which her tiny, wax-like fingers played with listless unconsciousness, while her eyes were fixed on me. The child looked wan and

baby ill

always peaking and pining like"-and she stopped

e absence of motherly tenderness in spite of

no my ain; I hae

is it?" I

which the ironing was steadily resumed, with a

asting away before the witch-kindled fire of a diabolical hatred. The tiny hands and arms were pitiably thin, and showed under the yellow skin sharp little bones no larger than a chicken's; and at her wrists and temples the bl

: "Ou, mem, ye ken the family; or maybe ye'll hae been a friend of the puir thing's mither!" I was obliged t

le who owned the place; that there was "something wrong" about it all, she did not know what-a marriage ill-pleasing to the grandparents perhaps, perhaps even worse than that; but the mother was dead, the family had been abroad for upwa

ary eyes followed me out at the door, and I cried all the way home. Was it possible

ace did not yet exist), and stood watching the waves taking their mad run and leap over the end of the pier, in a glorious, foaming frenzy that kept me fascinated with the fine uproar, till it su

-wife of five and thirty, or "thereawa." "Can you tell me of any one who will take me out in a boat for a little while?" quoth I. She looked steadily at me for a minute, and then answered laconically, "Ay, my man and boy shall gang wi' ye." A few lusty screams brought her husband and son forth, and at her bidding they got a boat ready, and, with me well covered with sail-cloths, tarpaulins, and rough dreadnaughts of one sort and another, rowed out from the shore into the turmoil of the sea. A very little of the dancing I got now was delight enou

who had come with him to take care of me, was a fair-haired, fresh-faced young giant, of his mother's stra

husband and son were at home they should take me out; and I gave her my addres

softened in spite of its massiveness into something like delicacy by the transparent shadow of the white handkerchief tied hoodwise over her fair hair, and her shrill sweet voice calling "Caller haddi

the men in their sea clothes, all dripping like huge Newfoundland dogs, jumped out in their heavy boots and took each the way to their several houses, their stalwart partners, hauling all together at the rope fastened to the boat, drew it up beyond water-mark, and seized and sorted its freight of fish, and stalked off

ith all the spokes of the fish-wife's family wheel; at any rate, enough to distinguish Jamie from Sandy, an

k me down, and where I could hardly knock loud enough to make myself heard above the din within and without. She opened the door of a room that looked as if it was running over with live children, and confronted me with the unaltered aspect of her comely, smiling face. But I had driven down from Edinburgh in all the starlike splendor of a lilac silk dress and French crape bonnet, and my dear fish-wife stared at me silently, with her mouth and gray eyes wide o

as the Apostle of Phrenology, and the author of a work entitled "The Constitution of Man," and other writings, whose considerable merit and value appear to me more or less impaired by the craniological theory which he

mbe believed, if once generally accepted, would prove the clew to every difficulty, and the panacea for every evil existing in modern civilization. Political and social, religious and civil, mental and moral government, according to him, hinged upon the study and knowledge of the different organs of the human brain, and he labored incessantly to elucidate and illustrate this subject, upon which he thought the salvation of the world depended. For a number of years I enjoyed

uite as inefficient, her housemaids quite as careless, and her cooks quite as fiery-tempered and unsober as those of

ever executed, before he left Edinburgh to achieve fame and fortune as the most successful marble por

ald's absorbed manipulation of his clay, while I, the original clay, occupied the "bad eminence" of an artist's studio throne, my aunt came in with a small paper bag containing raspberry tarts in her hand. This was a d

y puff, for it was quite evident to me that my phrenological friend had impressed upon my artistic friend the special development of my organ of alimentiveness, as he politely called it, which I translated into the vulgate as "bump of greediness." In spite of my reluctance to sit to him, from the conviction that the thick outlin

l you exactly where-in the las

burst out laughing, on seeing the trap I had laid for h

been, I am afraid, rather base-a sort of "They do not mind death, but they can not bear pinching;" and though Euphrasia might, could, would, and should stab the man who was about to murder her father, I have no idea that she wou

beginning of his artistic career; but he had an expression of power and vivid intelligenc

the most successful and celebrated maker of busts, probably, in Rome, having achieved fame, fortune, the favor of the great, and the smiles of the fair, of the most fastidious portion of the English society that makes its winter season in Italy. He

m at dinner at Mrs. Archer Clive's (the authoress of "Paul Ferrol"). I had a nosegay of snowdrops in the bosom of my dress, and Macdonald, who sat next me,

had not visited for years, not a bad element to infuse into his Roman life and surroundings. Macdonald's portraits are generally good likenesses, sufficiently idealized to be also good works of art. In statuary he never accomplished any thin

is little-altered and strongly marked features only more striking. I visited his studio and found there, ardently and successfully creating immortal gods, a handsome, ple

g princes' "developments," but said they were very nice children, and likely to be capitally educated, for, he added (though shaking his head over cousinly intermarriages among royal personages), Prince Alber

anner were expressive of the kindliest benevolence; he had none of the angular rigidity of person and harshness of feature of his brother: both were worthy and distinguished men, but Andrew Combe was charming, which George Combe was not-at least to those who did not know him. Although Dr. Combe completely indorsed his brother's system, he was far lass fanatical and importunate in his advocacy of it. Indeed, his works upon physiology, hygiene, and the physical education of children are of such universal value and importance that no parent or trainer of youth should be unfamiliar with them. Moreover, to them and their excellent author society i

)-was so clearly written upon his thin, sallow face, deep-sunk eyes, and emaciated figure, and gave so serious and almost sad an expression to his countenance and manner, that one would as soon have thought of one's grandfather as an unsafe companion for young girls. I still possess a document, duly drawn up and engrossed in the form of a deed by his brother, embodying a promise which he made to me jestingly one day, that when he was dead he would not fail to let me know, if ever ghosts were permitted to revisit the earth, by appearing to me, binding himself by this contract that the vision should be unaccompanied by the smallest smell of sulphur or flash of blue flame, and that instead of the indecorous undress of a slovenly winding-sheet, he would wear his usual garments, and the familiar brown great-coat with which, to use his own expression, he "buttoned his bones together" in his life. I remembered that laughing promise when, years after it was given, the news of his death reached me, and I thought how little dismay I should feel if it could indeed have been possible for me to see again, "in his image as he lived," that kind and excellent friend. On one of the occasions when Dr. Combe took me to visit one of his patients, we went to a quaint old house in the near neighborhood of Edinburgh. If the Laird of Dumbiedike's mansion had been still standing, it might have been

ing interest in life was hunting out and collecting the smallest records or memorials of this shadow of a hero; surely the merest "royal apparition" that ever assumed kingship. "What a set those Stuarts must have been!" exclaimed an American friend of mine once, after listening to "Bonnie Prince Charlie," "to have had all those glorious Jacobite songs made and sung for them, and not to have been more of men than they were!" An

years old, and feared she might not live till the crown jewels of Scotland were permitted to become objects of public exhibition, and pressed Sir Walter with importunate prayers to allow her to see them before she died. Sir Walter's good sense and good nature alike induced him to take upon himself to grant the poor old lady's petition, and he himself conducted her into the presence of these relics of

the case; and whereas I think my mother's apprehensions and precautions would have very probably been finally justified by some childish engagement between Harry and myself, resulting in all sorts of difficulties and complications as time went on and absence and distance produced their salutary effect on a boy of twenty and a girl of seventeen, Mrs. Harry remained passive, and apparently unconscious of any danger; and we walked and talked and danced and were sentimental together after the most approved cousinly fashion, and Ha

n the blood of the kings of Delhi, and in whose descendants, in one or two instances, even in the fourth generation, this ancestry reveals itself by a type of beauty of strikingly Oriental character. Among these is the beautiful Mrs. Scott-Siddons, whose exquisite features present the most perfect living miniature of her gre

great advantage to an intelligent girl of my age to hear such vigorous, manly, clear expositions of the broadest aspects of all the great political and governmental questions of the day. Admirable sound sense was the characteristic that predominated in that intellectual circle, and was brought to bear upon every subject; and I remember with the greatest pleasure the evenings I passed

been difficult for himself, to determine what was genuine thought and feeling in him, and what the mere appearance or demonstration or imitation of thought and feeling. Perhaps this peculiarity was what made him such a perfect actor. He was a very melancholy man, with a tendency to moody morbidness of mind which made him a subject of constant anxiety to his sister. His countenance, which was very expressive without being at all handsome, habitually wore an air of depression, and yet it was capable of brilliant vivacity and humorous play of feature. His conversation, when he was in good spirits, was a delightful

singing everything only by ear, he executed the music of the Figaro in Mozart's "Nozze" admirably. He had a good deal of his sister's winning charm of manner, and was (but not, I think, of malice prepense) that pleasantly pernicious creature, a male flirt. It was quite out of his power to address any woman (sister or niece or cookmaid) without an air and expression of s

she produced one of the most powerful impressions that music and poetry combined can produce. From her I heard and learned by ear "The Douglas Tragedy," "Fine Flowers in the Valley," "Edinbro'," and many others, and became completely enamored of the wild beauty of the Scotch ballads, the terror and pity of their stories, and the strange, sweet, mournful music to which they were told. I knew every collection of them, that I could get hold of, by heart, from Scott's "Border Minstrelsy" to Smith's six volumes of "National Scottish Songs with their Musical Settings," and I said and sang them over in my lonely walks perpetually; and they still are to me among the deepest and freshest sources of poetical thought and feeling that I know. It is impossible, I think, to find a truer expression of passion, anguish, tenderness, and supernatural terror, than those poems contain. The dew of heaven on the mountain fern is not more

to become such admirable and eminent men-had to make against the hardships of their position. I remember his describing the terrible longing occasioned by the smell of newly baked bread in a baker's shop near which they lived, to their poor, half-starved, craving appetites, while they were saving every farthing they could scrape together for books and that intellectual sustenance of which, in after years, they became such bountiful dispensers to all

and infirm to go to the theater, and who said to me as I sat on a low stool by his sofa, "Why, madam, they tell me you are become a great tragic actress! But," added he, putting his hand under my chin, and raising my face toward him, "how am I to believe that of this laughing face, madam?" No doubt he saw in his memory's eye the majestic nose of my aunt, and my "visnomy" under the effect of such a contrast must have looked comical enough, by way of a tragic mask. By the bye, it is on record that while Gainsborough was painting that exquisite portrait of Mrs. Siddons which

irably placed in a small angle or turret that commanded the beautiful land and sea and town, and immediately overlooked the hollow road up which, with its gallant military escort of Highland troops, and the resounding accompaniment of their warlike music, the great old lumbering piece of ordnance came slowly, dragged by a magnificent team of horses, into the fortress. Nothing could be more striking than the contrast presented by this huge, clumsy, misshapen, obsolete engine of wa

arms, and her blue velvet dress with a girdle flashing with diamonds, impressed me almost as much as her singing; which, indeed, was rather a declamatory and dramatic than a musical performance. The tones of her voice were still fine and full, and the majestic action of her arms as she uttered the words, "When Britain first arose from the waves," wonderfully graceful and descriptive; still, I remembe