I must, of course, take no notice of her frank communication, but continue to call them "Johnston." Families which "come from nothing and nobody"--the foolish lassie! as if we did not all come alike from Father Adam;--are very tenacious on these points; which may have their Value--to families. Unto isolated individuals they seem ridiculous. To me, for instance, of what benefit is it to bear an ancient name, bequeathed by ancestors whom I owe nothing besides, and which I shall leave to no descendants. I, who have no abiding place on the whole earth, and to whom, as I read in a review extract yesterday, "My home is any room where I can draw a bolt across the door." Speaking of home, I revert to my first glimpse of the interior of Rockmount, that rainy night, when, weary with my day and night journey, and struck more than ever with the empty dreariness of Treherne Court, and the restlessness of its poor gouty old master, able to enjoy so little out of all his splendours, I suddenly entered this snug little "home." The fire, the tea-table, the neatly-dressed daughters, looking quite different from decked-out beauties, or hospital slatterns, which are the two phases in which I most often see the sex. Certainly, to one who has been much abroad, there is a great charm in the sweet looks of a thorough English woman by her own fireside. This picture fixed itself on my mind, distinct as a photograph; for truly it was printed in light. The warm, bright parlour, with a delicate-tinted paper, a flowered carpet, and amber curtains, which I noticed because one of the daughters was in the act of drawing them, to screen the draught from her father's arm-chair. The old man--he must be seventy, nearly--standing on the hearth-rug, met me coldly enough, which was not surprising, prior to our conversation. The three ladies I have before named. Of these, the future Mrs. Treherne is by far the handsomest; but I still prefer the countenance of my earliest acquaintance, Miss Theodora--a pretty name. Neither she nor her sisters gave me more than a formal bow; shaking hands is evidently not their custom with strangers. I should have thought of that, two days before. Mr. Johnston took me into his study. It is an antique room, with dogs for the fire-place, and a settle on either side the hearth; many books or papers about, and a large, neatly-arranged library on shelves. I noticed these things, because, as I say, my long absence from England caused them to attract me more than they might have done a person accustomed to English domestic life. That old man, gliding peacefully down-hill in the arms of his three daughters, was a sight pleasant enough. There must be many compensations in old age--in such an old age as this.