IN THE LIFE OF MRS. MARGARET MAITLAND, OF SUNNYSIDE. WRITTEN BY HERSELF. "Give me my scallop shell of quiet, My scrip of joy-immortal diet, My gown of glory, hope's true gage; Travelleth toward the land of Heaven-" SIR WALTER RALEIGH. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1849. 249. c.99. PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MRS. MARGARET MAITLAND. CHAPTER I. IT has often come into my head that, seeing the threads of Providence have many times a semblance of ravelling, it would be for edification to trace out one here and one there, that folk might see how well woven the web was, into which the Almighty's hand had run them. I doubt not the world will think me bold, being but a quiet woman of discreet years and small riches, in having such an imagination as that it could be the VOL. I. B better of hearing the like of my homely story; nevertheless, seeing there are many young folk who are but beginning for their own hand, and know not what may befa" them, I think it is right to set down here what has come to pass in my corner of this great earth, and within my own knowledge. It is a troublous water-the water of life, and it has often given me a sore heart to see young things launched upon it, like bairn's boats, sailing hither and thither in an unpurpose-like manner, and having no thought of who it is that sends both the lown wind and the storm; and if they have need of various instruments and a right pilot-man to guide ships over that constant uncertainty, the sea (as I have read in books), I think not but there is far greater need of all manner of helps to win safely through that greater uncertainty-life. Uncertainty I call it, looking at it as the young folk I have mentioned do, with the short-sighted vision of a frail mortal; and though we know that to One Eye there is in it no matter of dubiety, yet I will not therefore change my word, for that is too great a thing for the like of me, seeing I profess to nothing but a common share of understanding, to make or meddle with. I mind well when I was in years little above a bairn, of lying on the grass in a park near the Manse (for my father had a glebe of fine land, the like of which, I have heard, was hardly in the parish), looking at the white clouds sailing upon the sky, and thinking no mortal could be happier if I might but have abode there; but it aye so happened that my seam was lying waiting for me in the Manse parlour, or the unlearned lesson compelled me to go in; and when in the summer nights I had a while to myself, there ever came in something to |