as found a chance of
placing himself permanently with a former master, and, of course, is
glad of the opportunity to do so.

I have not yet seen any of the Coxes. Cecilia and Mr. Combe only arrived
last night from Hull, having come by Antwerp. They have both got the
influenza, and are very much knocked up, and I have seen neither of them
yet....

The railroad running through the Castle Gardens has cruelly spoiled
them, of course, though from the depth of the ravine, at the bottom of
which it lies, it is not seen from Prince's Street; but its silver wake
floats up above the highest trees of the banks, and the Gardens
themselves are ruined by it. I have a sadly affectionate feeling for
every inch of that ground.... I do not admire Scott's monument very
much. It is an exact copy in stone of the Episcopal Throne in Exeter
Cathedral, a beautiful piece of wood carving. The difference between the
white color of the statue and the gray shrine by which it is canopied is
not agreeable to me. I should have liked it better if the figure had
been of the same stone as the monument, and so of the same color.

In Edinburgh it is never so much the detail of its various parts that
arrests my attention and enchants me especially, as the picturesque and
grand effect of its several parts in juxtaposition with each other--the
beautiful result of all its features together, the striking and romantic
whole. The Carlton Hill seems to me more covered with buildings than I
thought it was; but I believe you have seen it since I have, so that I
do not know how to answer your question about it.

In determining to act in Edinburgh I followed the advice of the Mairs,
who were, of course, more likely to be able to judge of the probable
relative success of reading or acting here, and who counselled the
latter.... Good-bye, dear.

Ever yours,
FANNY.

[My cousin Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Mrs. Harry Siddons,
married Major Mair, son of that fine old officer, Colonel Mair,
Governor of Fort George. During several protracted seasons of
foreign service, one of the banishments to which his military duty
condemned Arthur Mair was a remote and lonely outpost on the
furthest border of our then hardly peopled Canadian territory--a
literal wilderness, without human inhabitants. Here, alone, with the
small body of men under his co