together impracticable, and not to be thought of.'

Dominie Sampson left her presence altogether crest-fallen, and, as he
shut the door, could not help muttering the 'varium et mutabile' of
Virgil. Next day he appeared with a very rueful visage, and tendered Miss
Bertram a letter. 'Mr. Hazlewood,' he said, 'was to discontinue his
lessons, though he had generously made up the pecuniary loss. But how
will he make up the loss to himself of the knowledge he might have
acquired under my instruction? Even in that one article of writing,--he
was an hour before he could write that brief note, and destroyed many
scrolls, four quills, and some good white paper. I would have taught him
in three weeks a firm, current, clear, and legible hand; he should have
been a calligrapher,--but God's will be done.'

The letter contained but a few lines, deeply regretting and murmuring
against Miss Bertram's cruelty, who not only refused to see him, but to
permit him in the most indirect manner to hear of her health and
contribute to her service. But it concluded with assurances that her
severity was vain, and that nothing could shake the attachment of Charles
Hazlewood.

Under the active patronage of Mrs. Mac-Candlish, Sampson picked up some
other scholars--very different indeed from Charles Hazlewood in rank, and
whose lessons were proportionally unproductive. Still, however, he gained
something, and it was the glory of his heart to carry it to Mr.
Mac-Morlan weekly, a slight peculium only subtracted to supply his
snuff-box and tobacco-pouch.

And here we must leave Kippletringan to look after our hero, lest our
readers should fear they are to lose sight of him for another quarter of
a century.

CHAPTER XVI
Our Polly is a sad slut, nor heeds what we have taught her,
I wonder any man alive will ever rear a daughter,
For when she's drest with care and cost, all tempting, fine,
and gay,
As men should serve a cucumber, she flings herself away.

Beggar's Opera.

After the death of Mr. Bertram, Mannering had set out upon a short tour,
proposing to return to the neighbourhood of Ellangowan before the sale of
that property should take place. He went, accordingly, to Edinburgh and
elsewhere, and it was in his return towards the south-western district of
Scotland, in which our scene lies, that, at a post-town about a hundred
miles from Kippletringan, to which he had requested his friend, Mr.
M