irk on Sunday morning, but we let our mother attend afternoon
service alone, as he and I were happy to be together, and we spent the
time sitting on the grassy rocks at the foot of our garden, from whence
we could see a vast extent of the Firth of Forth with Edinburgh and its
picturesque hills. It was very amusing, for we occasionally saw three or
four whales spouting, and shoals of porpoises at play. However, we did
not escape reproof, for I recollect the servant coming to tell us that
the minister had sent to inquire whether Mr. and Miss Fairfax had been
taken ill, as he had not seen them at the kirk in the afternoon. The
minister in question was Mr. Wemyss, who had married a younger sister of
my mother's.

* * * * *

When I was about thirteen my mother took a small apartment in Edinburgh
for the winter, and I was sent to a writing school, where I soon learnt
to write a good hand, and studied the common rules of arithmetic. My
uncle William Henry Charters, lately returned from India, gave me a
pianoforte, and I had music lessons from an old lady who lived in the
top story of one of the highest houses in the old town. I slept in the
same room with my mother. One morning I called out, much alarmed, "There
is lightning!" but my mother said, after a moment, "No; it is fire!" and
on opening the window shutters I found that the flakes of fire flying
past had made the glass quite hot. The next house but one was on fire
and burning fiercely, and the people next door were throwing everything
they possessed, even china and glass, out of the windows into the
street. We dressed quickly, and my mother sent immediately to Trotter
the upholsterer for four men. We then put our family papers, our silver,
&c., &c., into trunks; then my mother said, "Now let us breakfast, it is
time enough for us to move our things when the next house takes fire."
Of its doing so there was every probability because casks of turpentine
and oil were exploding from time to time in a carriage manufactory at
the back of it. Several gentlemen of our acquaintance who came to assist
us were surprised to find us breakfasting quietly as if there were
nothing unusual going on. In fact my mother, though a coward in many
things, had, like most women, the presence of mind and the courage of
necessity. The fire was extinguished, and we had only the four men to
pay for doing nothing, nor did we sacrifice any of our property like our
neighbours w