tea and coffee is
not made by the lady of the house, but out of the room, and brought in
without sugar or milk, on servors, every one helping himself, and only
plain flimsy loaf and butter is served--no such thing as shortbread,
seed-cake, bun, marmlet, or jeelly to be seen, which is an okonomical
plan, and well worthy of adaptation in ginteel families with narrow
incomes, in Irvine or elsewhere.

But when I tell you what I am now going to say, you will not be surprizt
at the great wealth in London. I paid for a bumbeseen gown, not a bit
better than the one that was made by you that the sore calamity befell,
and no so fine neither, more than three times the price; so you see, Miss
Nanny, if you were going to pouse your fortune, you could not do better
than pack up your ends and your awls and come to London. But ye're far
better at home--for this is not a town for any creditable young woman
like you, to live in by herself, and I am wearying to be back, though
it's hard to say when the Doctor will get his counts settlet. I wish
you, howsomever, to mind the patches for the bed-cover that I was going
to patch, for a licht afternoon seam, as the murning for the king will no
be so general with you, and the spring fashons will be coming on to help
my gathering--so no more at present from your friend and well-wisher,

JANET PRINGLE.

CHAPTER VI--PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

On Sunday morning, before going to church, Mr. Micklewham called at the
manse, and said that he wished particularly to speak to Mr. Snodgrass.
Upon being admitted, he found the young helper engaged at breakfast, with
a book lying on his table, very like a volume of a new novel called
_Ivanhoe_, in its appearance, but of course it must have been sermons
done up in that manner to attract fashionable readers. As soon, however,
as Mr. Snodgrass saw his visitor, he hastily removed the book, and put it
into the table-drawer.

The precentor having taken a seat at the opposite side of the fire, began
somewhat diffidently to mention, that he had received a letter from the
Doctor, that made him at a loss whether or not he ought to read it to the
elders, as usual, after worship, and therefore was desirous of consulting
Mr. Snodgrass on the subject, for it recorded, among other things, that
the Doctor had been at the playhouse, and Mr. Micklewham was quite sure
that Mr. Craig would be neither to bi