om her regularly every morning by the post, and we are to be
united for life in a fortnight. Who was ever so blest in his love? Then
again John Fraser--my old schoolfellow! I don't believe there's anything
in the world he would not do for me. I'm sure there's no living thing that
he loves so much as myself, except, perhaps, his old uncle Simon, and his
black mare."

I had by this time returned to the fireplace, and, reseating myself, began
to apostrophize my magnificent black Newfoundland, who, having partaken of
my dinner, was following the advice and example of Abernethy, and sleeping
on the rug, as it digested.--"And you, too, my old Neptune, aren't you the
best and handsomest dog in the universe?"

Neptune finding himself addressed, awoke leisurely from his slumbers, and
fixed his eyes on mine with an affirmative expression.

"Ay, to be sure you are; and a capital swimmer too!"

Neptune raised his head from the rug, and beat the ground with his tail,
first to the right hand, and then to the left.

"And is he not a fine faithful fellow? And does he not love his master?"

Neptune rubbed his head against my hand, and concluded the conversation,
by again sinking into repose.

"That dog's a philosopher," I said; "He never says a word more than is
necessary:--then, again, not only blest in love and friendship, and my dog;
but what luck it was to sell, and in these times too, that old, lumbering
house of my father's, with its bleak, bare, hilly acres of chalk and
stone, fat eighty thousand pounds, and to have the money paid down, on the
very day the bargain was concluded. By the by, though, I had forgot:--I
may as well write to Messrs. Drax and Drayton about that money, and order
them to pay it immediately to Coutts's,--mighty honest people and all that:
but faith, no solicitors should be trusted or tempted too far. It's a
foolish way, at any time, to leave money in other people's hands--in
anybody's hands--and I'll write about it at once."

As I said, so I did. I wrote my commands Messrs. Drax and Drayton, to pay
my eighty thousand pounds into Coutts's; and after desiring that my note
might be forwarded to them, the first thing in the morning, I took my
candle, and accompanied by Neptune, who always keeps watch by night at my
chamber door, proceeded to bed, as the watchman was calling "past twelve
o'clock," beneath my window.

_Blackwood's Magazine_.

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TO THE LADY BIR