in my closet, I called to my little sister, now Lady Hardwicke, who was the only person near me, 'I have been writing a ballad, my dear; I am oppressing my heroine with many misfortunes. I have already sent her Jamie to sea—and broken her father's arm—and made her mother fall sick—and given her Auld Robin Gray for her lover; but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow within the four lines, poor thing! Help me to one.'—'Steal the cow, sister Anne,' said the little Elizabeth. The cow was immediately lifted by me, and the song completed. At our fire-side, and amongst our neighbours, 'Auld Robin Gray' was always called for. I was pleased in secret with the approbation it met with; but such was my dread of being suspected of writing anything, perceiving the shyness it created in those who could write nothing, that I carefully kept my own secret.
"Happening to sing it one day at Dalkeith-House, with more feeling perhaps than belonged to a common ballad, our friend Lady Frances Scott smiled, and fixing her eyes on me, said, 'You wrote this song yourself.' The blush that followed confirmed my guilt. Perhaps I blushed the more (being then very young) from the recollection of the coarse words from which I borrowed the tune, and was
