Deans (Effie)

in Scott’s Heart of Midlothian, is Helen Walker. She is abandoned by her lover, Geordie Robertson [Staunton], and condemned for child-murder.

Jeanie Deans. Half-sister of Effie Deans, who walks all the way to London to plead for her sister. She is a model of good sense, strong affection, and disinterested heroism. (See Walker.)

“We follow Pilgrim through his progress with an interest not inferior to that with which we follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, and Jeanie Deans from Edinburgh to London.”—Lord Macaulay.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.