is nothing flattering), before sending back your pieces to
you. With best compliments to Lady Fairfax, believe me,

Your obliged and most obedient Servant,
HUGH BLAIR.
ARGYLL SQUARE, _11th April_ (probably) 1796.

A day or two after this a Mrs. Ramsay, a rich proud widow, a relation of
my mother's, came with her daughter, who was an heiress, to pay us a
morning visit. Looking round the room she asked who had painted the
pictures hung up on the walls. My mother, who was rather proud of them,
said they were painted by me. "I am glad," said Mrs. Ramsay, "that Miss
Fairfax has any kind of talent that may enable her to win her bread, for
everyone knows she will not have a sixpence." It was a very severe hit,
because it was true. Had it been my lot to win my bread by painting, I
fear I should have fared badly, but I never should have been ashamed of
it; on the contrary, I should have been very proud had I been
successful. I must say the idea of making money had never entered my
head in any of my pursuits, but I was intensely ambitious to excel in
something, for I felt in my own breast that women were capable of taking
a higher place in creation than that assigned to them in my early days,
which was very low.

Not long after Mrs. Ramsay's visit to my mother, Miss Ramsay went to
visit the Dons, at Newton Don, a pretty place near Kelso. Miss Ramsay
and the three Miss Dons were returning from a long walk; they had
reached the park of Newton Don, when they heard the dinner bell ring,
and fearing to be too late for dinner, instead of going round, they
attempted to cross a brook which runs through the park. One of the Miss
Dons stumbled on the stepping-stones and fell into the water. Her two
sisters and Miss Ramsay, trying to save her, fell in one after another.
The three Miss Dons were drowned, but Miss Ramsay, who wore a stiff
worsted petticoat, was buoyed up by it and carried down stream, where
she caught by the branch of a tree and was saved. She never recovered
the shock of the dreadful scene.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: Many people evidently think the science of astronomy
consists entirely in observing the stars, for I have been frequently
asked if I passed my nights looking through a telescope, and I have
astonished the enquirers by saying I did not even possess one.]

[Footnote 4: Nasmyth told a lady still alive who took lesso