ful for the honest independence his office affords him, and
says he can tolerate his Spanish neighbours (though they are as
ignorant as Turkish ladies), for the sake of his family, and of the
hope of returning, sooner or later, to live in his own country, after
having discharged his duty to his children. Theirs must be an irksome
life enough, as much of it as is passed out of their own doors: but
they seem to be finding out that it is not so much the _where_ and the
_how_, as the _what_ people are, that matters to their peace of mind;
and I suppose those who love each other, and have settled what they
are living for, can attain what they most want, nearly so well in one
place as another.

"Poor Anne wrote to _you_, I know, after the death of her infant--her
little Highlandman, as she proudly called him in her last letter
before she lost him. Gilchrist talked last year of bringing her and
his boy south this summer, and I had some hopes of seeing them all
here: but I have not been able to get them to speak again of
travelling, and I give it up for this year. I hope your letters and
theirs fall due seasonably; that your reports of all your devices to
cool yourself, reach them in the depth of their Caithness winter; and
that all they say to you of their snow-drifts and freshets is
acceptable when you are panting in the hottest of your noons. Anne
writes more cheerfully than she did, and Gilchrist says she is
exerting herself to overcome her sorrow. Their love must be passing
strange in the eyes of all such as despised Anne's match. It is such
as should make Anne's brothers feel very cordially towards Gilchrist.
We have drifted asunder in life rather strangely, when one comes to
think of it; and our anchorage grounds are pretty far apart. Who
would have thought it, when we four used to climb the old apple-tree
together, and drop down from the garden wall? I wonder whether we
shall ever contrive to meet in one house once more, and whether I may
be honoured by my house being the place? It is possible; and I spend
certain of my dreams upon the project. Do you not find that one
effect of this wide separation is, to make one fancy the world smaller
than one used to think it? You, on the other side of it, probably
waked up to this conviction long ago. It is just opening upon me,
shut up in my nook of our little island. When I have a letter from
yo