d with buildings in ruins, and
overgrown with nettles and rank grass. We had not seen a human being
since we left Glasgow, at least an hour before,--and of all the places
to have one's throat cut in!! The situation was so tight a place, it
really gave one the courage of desperation, and I ordered him to drive
away at once. I believe he was half frightened himself, and the horse
ditto, and never, never was I in anything so nearly turned over as that
cab! for the horse got it up a bank. At last it was righted, but not an
inch would my Scotchman budge till he'd put himself through the window
and confounded himself in apologies, and in explanations calculated to
convince me that, in spite of appearances, he knew the way to
Thornliebank "pairfeckly well." "Noo, I do beg of ye not to be
narrrr-vous. Do NOT give way to't. Ye may trust me entirely. Don't be
discommodded in the least. I'm just pairfectly acquainted with the road.
But it'll be havin' been there in the winter that's just misled me. But
we're aal right." And all right he did eventually land me here! so late
J. had nearly given me up.

* * * * *

TO MRS. ELDER.

_Greno House, Grenoside, Sheffield._
October 26, 1881.

DEAREST AUNT HORATIA,

* * * * *

D. says you would like some of the excellent Scotch stories I heard
from Mr. Donald Campbell. I wish I could take the wings of a swallow
and tell you them. You must supply gaps from your imagination.

They were as odd a lot of tales as I ever heard--_drawled_ (oh so
admirably drawled, without the flutter of an eyelid, or the quiver of
a muscle) by a Lowland Scotchman, and queerly characteristic of the
Lowland Scotch race!!!! Picture this slow phlegmatic rendering to your
"mind's eye, Horatia!"

A certain excellent woman after a long illness--departed this life,
and the Minister went to condole with the Widower. "The Hand of
affliction has been heavy on yu, Donald. Ye've had a sair loss in
your Jessie."

"Aye--aye--I've had a sair loss in my Jessie--an' a heavy ex-pense."

* * * * *

A good woman lost her husband, and the Minister made his way to the
court where she lived. He found her playing cards with a friend. But
she was _aequus ad occasionem_--as Charlie says!--

"Come awa', Minister! Come awa' in wi' ye. Ye'll see _I'm just hae-ing
a trick with the cairds to ding puir Davie oot o' my heid_."

*