John Leech and other papers

A Jacobite Family. 105
only two sons and two daughters surviving. She
came across to Scotland, and settled in Edinburgh
for their education. Her husband, broken in health
and longing for home, after some difficulty obtained
royal permission to return to Stoneywood, which he
did in 1762. He died in 1782, aged seventy-two
years, leaving his dear Margaret with her two daugh-
ters, all his seven sons having gone before him.
Our beautiful old lady lived into this century,
dying in 1805, at the age of ninety-six, having
retained her cheerfulness and good health, and a
most remarkable degree of comeliness, to the last.
Her teeth were still fresh and white, and all there,
her lips ruddy, her cheeks suffused with as delicate a
tint as when she was the rose and the lily of Ardross,
gentle in her address, and with the same contented
evenness of mind that had accompanied her through
all her trials. We cannot picture her better than in
her kinsman's loving, skilful words : —
' Accustomed as I was to pass a few hours of every
day of my frequent visits to Aberdeen during a good
many of the latter years of the worthy old lady's
life, the impression can never become obliterated
from my recollection, of the neat, orderly chamber in
which, at whatever hour I might come, I was sure to
see her countenance brighten up with affection, and
welcome me with the never-failing invitation to come
and kiss her cheek. And there she sat in her arm-