"
But we will let her disclose herself. We need hardly say that all this
is true, and that these letters are as really Marjorie's as was this
light brown hair; indeed, you could as easily fabricate the one as the
other.
There was an old servant--Jeanie Robertson--who was forty years in her
grandfather's family. Marjorie Fleming, or, as she is called in the
letters and by Sir Walter, Maidie, was the last child she kept. Jeanie's
wages never exceeded 3 pounds a year, and when she left service she had
saved 40 pounds. She was devotedly attached to Maidie, rather despising
and ill-using her sister Isabella,--a beautiful and gentle child. This
partiality made Maidie apt at times to domineer over Isabella. "I
mention this," writes her surviving sister, "for the purpose of telling
you an instance of Maidie's generous justice. When only five years old,
when walking in Raith grounds, the two children had run on before, and
old Jeanie remembered they might come too near a dangerous mill-lade.
She called to them to turn back. Maidie heeded her not, rushed all the
faster on, and fell, and would have been lost, had her sister not pulled
her back, saving her life, but tearing her clothes. Jeanie flew on
Isabella to 'give it her' for spoiling her favorite's dress; Maidie
rushed in between, crying out, 'Pay (whip) Maidjie as much as you like,
and I'll not say one word; but touch Isy, and I'll roar like a bull!'
Years after Maidie was resting in her grave, my mother used to take me
to the place, and told the story always in the exact same words.
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