I give it in his own words:--"When I was a child there was an old servant at Pinkieburn, where my early days were spent, who had been all her life, I may say, in the house--for she came to it a child, and lived, without ever leaving it, till she died in it, seventy-five years of age.

Her feeling to her old master, who was just two years younger than herself, was a curious compound of the deference of a servant and the familiarity and affection of a sister.

She had known him as a boy, lad, man, and old man, and she seemed to have a sort of notion that without her he must be a very helpless being indeed.

'I aye keepit the hoose for him, whether he was hame or awa',' was a frequent utterance of hers; and she never seemed to think the intrusion even of his own nieces, who latterly lived with him, at all legitimate.

When on her deathbed, he hobbled to her room with difficulty, having just got over a severe attack of gout, to bid her farewell.