'The only table was a massive piece of furniture with a desk and all its appurtenances on either side, that an amanuensis might work opposite to him when he chose, and with small tiers of drawers reaching all round to the floor. The top displayed a goodly array of session papers, and on the desk below were, besides the MS. at which he was working, sundry parcels of letters, proof-sheets, and so forth, all neatly done up in red tape. His own writing apparatus was a very handsome old box, richly covered, lined with crimson velvet, and containing ink-bottles, taper-stand, etc., in silver, the whole in such order that it might have come from the silversmith's window half an hour before.' At the desk most of the novels were written, we may suppose, though not all at Abbotsford, as is not unfrequently imagined. It is, however, impossible to collate with exactness the dates and occasions of their composition. The fact remains, that in all probability each of the Waverleys was penned at this desk. Hence its unreckonable value to the literary pilgrim, and the unqualified reverence with which tens of thousands have gazed upon it. Certainly no article of furniture has been so intimately associated with Scott. Fourteen years from the time that he first saw it, it fell to Lockhart himself to open Scott's desk under the mournfullest circumstances. 'Perhaps the most touching evidence of the lasting tenderness of Sir Walter's early domestic feelings was exhibited to his executors when they opened his repositories in search of his testament the evening after his burial. On lifting up his desk we found, arranged in careful order, a series of little objects which had obviously been so placed there that his eye might rest on them every morning before he began his tasks. These were the old-fashioned boxes that had garnished his mother's toilette when he, a sickly child, slept in her dressing-room--the silver taper-stand, which the young advocate had bought for her with his first five-guinea fee; a row of small packets, inscribed with her hand, and containing the hair of those of her offspring who had died before her; his father's snuff-box and etui case, and more things of the like sort, recalling "the old familiar faces."' Scott's desk is seldom seen open. The present writer counts it one of the memories of his life to have had that pleasure, and to have sat in Sir Walter's 'own huge elbow-chair,' and to have handled--an act almost too sacred after all those years--relics so touching and pathetic in their associations. The little locks of hair are still there, with the quills used by Scott, and his spectacles, pocket-knife, paper-knife, and a large number of account-books and other private documents. Here, too, is Mrs. Lockhart's Bible 'From J. G. L., 1825,' her Prayer-Book, and a host of articles with which both Scott and Lockhart must have been long familiar. [Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT'S DESK AND 'ELBOW CHAIR' IN THE STUDY, ABBOTSFORD]