VII. PAPA AND MAMMA 123

I never heard a single word of any sentiment, accident, admiration, or affection disturbing the serene tenor of her Scottish stewardship; yet I noticed that she never spoke without some slight shyness before my father, nor without some pleasure, to other people, of Dr. Thomas Brown.¹

142. That the Professor of Moral Philosophy was a frequent guest at my grandmother’s tea-table, and fond of benignantly arguing with Miss Margaret, is evidence enough of the position she held in Edinburgh circles; her household skills and duties never therefore neglected-rather, if anything, still too scrupulously practised. Once, when she had put her white frock on for dinner, and hurried to the kitchen to give final glance at the state and order of things there, old Mause,² having run against the white frock with a black saucepan, and been, it seems, rebuked by her young mistress with too little resignation to the will of Providence in that matter, shook her head sorrowfully, saying, “Ah, Miss Margaret, ye are just like Martha, careful’ and troubled about mony things.”

143. When my mother was thus, at twenty, in a Desdemona-like prime of womanhood, intent on highest moral philosophy,-“though still the house affairs would draw her thence”³-my father was a dark-eyed, brilliantly active, and sensitive youth of sixteen. Margaret became to him an absolutely respected and admired-mildly liked -governess and confidante. Her sympathy was necessary to him in all his flashingly transient amours; her advice in all domestic business or sorrow, and her encouragement in all his plans of life. These were already determined for commerce;-yet not to the abandonment of liberal study. He had learned Latin thoroughly, though with no large range of reading, under the noble traditions of Adam⁴ at

¹ [1778-1820; Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, 1810.]

² [See above, §§ 71, 77 (pp. 63, 70).]

³ [Othello, Act i. sc. 3.]

⁴ [Author of the Latin Grammar above referred to (p. 83): for a notice of him in connexion with Scott, see Fors, Letter 31 (Vol. XXVII. p. 582); and see further, below, ii. § 229 (p. 460).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]