as a widower with eight children, whom he had
educated with the help of a governess, but he was the main factor in
their training. The two eldest daughters were married--Mrs. Andrews,
the eldest, had helped him in his calculations for his great book on
"Representation." His second daughter was artistic, and was married to
John Westlake, an eminent lawyer, great in international law, a pupil
of Colenso, who was then in London, and who was the best-abused man in
the church. Another visitor was George Cowan, a great friend of my late
brother-in-law, Mr. W. J. Wren, who wrote to him till his death, when
the pen was taken up by my sister Mary till her death, and then I
corresponded with him till his death. He came to London a raw Scotch
lad, and met Mr. Wren at the Whittington Club. Both loved books and
poetry, and both were struggling to improve themselves on small
salaries. George Cowan had been entrusted with the printed slips of
"Uphill Work," and had tried it at two publishers without success. I
had to delay any operations till I returned to London, and promised to
visit the Cowans there.

CHAPTER VII.

MELROSE REVISITED.

Jack Bakewell and Edward Lancelot Stirling went to see me off by the
night train to Dunbar Station, five miles from Thornton-Loch, and I got
there in time for breakfast. The old house was just the same except for
an oriel window in the drawing room looking out on the North Sea, and
the rocks which lay between it and Colhandy path (where my
great-grandfather Spence had preached and his wife had preferred
Wesley), and Chirnside, or Spence's Mains in the same direction. All
the beautiful gardens, the farm village, where about 80 souls lived,
the fields and bridges were just as I remembered them. My aunt Margaret
was no longer the vigorous business-like woman whom I recollected
riding or driving in her little gig an over the farm of 800 English
acres which my great-grandfather had rented since 1811. Not the Miss
Thompson whom I had introduced into "Uphill Work." She had had a severe
stroke of paralysis, and was a prisoner to the house, only being lifted
from her bed to be dressed, and to sit in a wheeled chair and be taken
round the garden on fine days. The vigorous intellect was somewhat
clouded, and the power of speech also; but she retained her memory. She
was always at work with her needle (for her hands were not affected)
for the London children, grandnieces, and nephews who called her
gr