Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott Volume I Part 20

CHARLOTTE

P. S.--_etudiez {p.263} votre Francais._ Remember you are to teach me Italian in return, but I shall be but a stupid scholar.

_Aimez Charlotte._

CARLISLE, December 14.

... I heard last night from my friends in London, and I shall certainly have the deed this week. I will send it to you directly; but not to lose so much time, as you have been reckoning, I will prevent any little delay that might happen by the post, by fixing already next Wednesday for your coming here, and on Thursday the 21st--Oh, my dear Scott, on that day I shall be yours forever.

C. C.

_P. S._--Arrange it so that we shall see none of your family the night of our arrival. I shall be so tired, and such a fright, I should not be seen to advantage.

To these extracts I may add the following from the first leaf of an old black-letter Bible at Abbotsford:--

"_Secundum morem majorum haec de familia Gualteri Scott, Jurisconsulti Edinensis, in librum hunc sacrum manu sua conscripta sunt._

"_Gualterus Scott, filius Gualteri Scott et Annae Rutherford, natus erat apud Edinam 15mo die Augusti, A. D. 1771._

"_Socius Facultatis Juridicae Edinensis receptus erat 11mo die Julii, A. D. 1792._

"_In ecclesiam Sanctae Mariae apud Carlisle, uxorem duxit Margaretam Charlottam Carpenter, filiam quondam Joannis Charpentier et Charlottae Volere, Lugdunensem, 24to die Decembris, 1797._"[143]

[Footnote 143: The account in the text of Miss Carpenter's origin has been, I am aware, both spoken and written of as an uncandid one: it had been expected that even in 1837 I would not pa.s.s in silence a rumor of early prevalence, which represented her and her brother as children of Lord Downs.h.i.+re by Madame Charpentier. I did not think it necessary to allude to this story while any of Sir Walter's own children were living; and I presume it will be sufficient for me to say now, that neither I, nor, I firmly believe, any one of them, ever heard either from Sir Walter, or from his wife, or from Miss Nicolson (who survived them both) the slightest hint as to the rumor in question. There is not an expression in the preserved correspondence between Scott, the young lady, and the Marquis, that gives it a shadow of countenance. Lastly, Lady Scott always kept hanging by her bedside, and repeatedly kissed in her dying moments, a miniature of her father which is now in my hands; and it is the well-painted likeness of a handsome gentleman--but I am a.s.sured the features have no resemblance to Lord Downs.h.i.+re or any of the Hill family.--(1848.)]

END OF VOLUME ONE