long that he occasionally would startle the congregation by calling out to some culprit, "Sit up there, how daur ye sleep i' the kirk." Some saw-mills in the neighbourhood were burnt down, so the following Sunday we had a sermon on hell-fire. The kirk was very large and quaint; a stair led to a gallery on each side of the pulpit, which was intended for the tradespeople, and each division was marked with a suitable device, and text from Scripture. On the bakers' portion a sheaf of wheat was painted; a balance and weights on the grocers', and on the weavers', which was opposite to our pew, there was a shuttle, and below it the motto, "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hop job." The artist was evidently no clerk.

My brother Sam, while attending the university in Edinburgh, came to us on the Saturdays and returned to town on Monday. He of course went with us to the kirk 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 who had completely lost their heads from terror. I may mention here that on one occasion when my father was at home he had been ill with a severe cold, and wore his nightcap. While reading in the drawing-room one evening he called out, "I smell fire, there is no time to be lost," so, snatching up a candle, he wandered from room to room followed by us all still smelling fire, when one of the servants said, "O, sir, it is the tassel of your nightcap that is on fire."

On returning to Burntisland, I spent four or five hours daily at the piano; and for the sake of having something to do, I taught myself Latin enough from such books as we had, to read Cæsar's "Commentaries." I went that summer on a visit to my aunt at Jedburgh, and, for the first time in my life, I met in my uncle, Dr. Somerville, with a friend who approved of my thirst for knowledge. During long walks with him in the early mornings, he was so kind, that I had the courage to tell him that I had been trying to learn Latin, but I feared it was in vain; for my brother and other boys, superior to me in talent, and with every assistance, spent years in learning it. He assured me, on the contrary, that in ancient times many women—some of them of the highest rank in England—had been very elegant scholars, and that he would read Virgil with me if I would come to his study for an hour or two every morning before breakfast, which I gladly did.

I never was happier in my life than during the months I spent at Jedburgh. My aunt was a charming companion—witty, full of anecdote, and had read more than most women of her day, especially Shakespeare, who was her favourite author. My cousins had little turn for reading, but they were better educated than most girls. They were taught to write by David Brewster, son of the village schoolmaster, afterwards Sir David, who became one of the most distinguished philosophers and discoverers of the age, member of all the scientific societies at home and abroad, and at last President of the University of Edinburgh. He was studying in Edinburgh when I was at Jedburgh; so I did not make his acquaintance then; but later in life he became my valued friend. I did not know till after his death, that, while teaching my cousins, he fell in love with my cousin Margaret. I do not believe she was aware of it. She was afterwards attached to an officer in the army; but my aunt would not allow her to go to that outlandish place, Malta, where he was quartered; so she lived and died unmarried. Steam has changed our ideas of distance since that time.

My uncle's house—the manse—in which I was born, stands in a pretty garden, bounded by the fine ancient abbey, which, though partially ruined, still serves as the parish kirk. The garden produced abundance of common flowers, vegetables, and fruit. Some of the plum and pear trees were very old, and were said to have been planted by the monks. Both were excellent in quality, and very productive. The view from both garden and manse was over the beautiful narrow valley through which the Jed flows. The precipitous banks of red sandstone are richly clothed with vegetation, some of the trees ancient and very fine, especially the magnificent one called the capon tree, and the lofty king of the wood, remnants of the fine forests which at one time had covered the country. An inland scene was new to me, and I was never tired of admiring the tree-crowned scaurs or precipices, where the rich glow of the red sandstone harmonized so well with the autumnal tints of the foliage.

We often bathed in the pure stream of the Jed. My aunt always went with us, and was the merriest of the party; we bathed in a pool which was deep under the high scaur, but sloped gradually from the grassy bank on the other side. Quiet and transparent as the Jed was, it one day came down with irresistible fury, red with the débris of the sandstone scaurs. There had been a thunderstorm in the hills up-stream, and as soon as the river began to rise, the people came out with pitchforks and hooks to catch the hayricks, sheaves of corn, drowned pigs, and other animals that came sweeping past. My cousins and I were standing on the bridge, but my aunt called us off when the water rose above the arches, for fear of the bridge giving way. We made expeditions every day; sometimes we went nutting in the forest; at other times we gathered