"Miss Muff Maidie Marjory Fleming,
favored by Rare Rear-Admiral Fleming,"
she says:--"I long much to see you, and talk over all our old stories
together, and to hear you read and repeat. I am pining for my old friend
Cesario, and poor Lear, and wicked Richard. How is the dear
Multiplication table going on? are you still as much attached to 9 times
9 as you used to be?"
But this dainty, bright thing is about to flee,--to come "quick to
confusion." The measles she writes of seized her, and she died on the
19th of December, 1811. The day before her death, Sunday, she sat up in
bed, worn and thin, her eye gleaming as with the light of a coming
world, and with a tremulous, old voice repeated the lines by
Burns,--heavy with the shadow of death, and lit with the fantasy of the
judgment-seat,--the publican's prayer in paraphrase:--