She wished to purchase a table-cloth of a cheque pattern, like the squares of a chess or draught board.

Now a draught-board used to be called (as I remember) by old Scotch people a "dam[61] brod[62]." Accordingly, Mrs.Chisholm entered the shop of a linen-draper, and asked to be shown table-linen a _dam-brod pattern_.
The shopman, although, taken aback by a request, as he considered it, so strongly worded, by a respectable old lady, brought down what he assured her was the largest and widest made.

No; that would not do.

She repeated her wish for a dam-brod pattern, and left the shop surprised at the stupidity of the London shopman not having the pattern she asked for.
_Silly_ has in genuine old Scottish use reference to weakness of body only, and not of mind.

Before knowing the use of the word, I remember being much astonished at a farmer of the Mearns telling me of the strongest-minded man in the county that he was "uncommon silly," not insinuating any decline of mental vigour, but only meaning that his bodily strength was giving way.
_Frail_, in like manner, expresses infirmity of body, and implies no charge of any laxity in moral principle; yet I have seen English persons looking with considerable consternation when an old-fashioned Scottish lady, speaking of a young and graceful female, lamented her being so _frail_.
_Fail_ is another instance of different use of words.