The contents of the packet I had no difficulty in guessing, and have partly hinted at them in the last chapter.

But to instruct the reader in the particulars, and at the same time to indulge myself with recalling the virtues and agreeable qualities of my late friend, I will give a short sketch of her manners and habits.
Mrs.Martha Bethune Baliol was a person of quality and fortune, as these are esteemed in Scotland.

Her family was ancient, and her connections honourable.

She was not fond of specially indicating her exact age, but her juvenile recollections stretched backwards till before the eventful year 1745, and she remembered the Highland clans being in possession of the Scottish capital, though probably only as an indistinct vision.

Her fortune, independent by her father's bequest, was rendered opulent by the death of more than one brave brother, who fell successively in the service of their country, so that the family estates became vested in the only surviving child of the ancient house of Bethune Baliol.