_Dalmahoy, eight miles from Edinburgh, December 27, Wednesday._ I am now seated at a little table in the _Yellow Bedchamber_ at Earl Morton's, and will give an account of my day. After my breakfast, not anxious to begin another Pheasant, I did some writing and paid some visits, returned to my lodgings and packed a box for America with various gifts, some mementos I had received, and several newspapers, when Lord Morton's carriage was announced. My _porte-feuille_ and valise were carried down, and I followed them and entered a large carriage lined with purple morocco; never was I in so comfortable a conveyance before; the ship that under easy sail glides slowly on an even sea has a more fatiguing motion; I might have been in a swinging hammock. We passed the castle, through Charlotte Square, and out on the Glasgow road for eight miles, all so swiftly that my watch had barely changed the time from one hour to another when the porter pushed open the gate of Dalmahoy. I now began to think of my meeting with the man who had been great Chamberlain to the late Queen Charlotte. I did not so much mind meeting the Countess, for I had become assured of her sweetness of disposition when we had met on previous occasions, but the Chamberlain I could not help dreading to encounter. This, however, did not prevent the carriage from proceeding smoothly round a great circle, neither did it prevent me from seeing a large, square, half Gothic building with two turrets, ornamented with great lions, and all the signs of heraldry belonging to Lord Morton. The carriage stopped, a man in livery opened the door, and I walked in, giving him my hat and gloves and my American stick (that, by the bye, never leaves me unless I leave it). Upstairs I went and into the drawing-room. The Countess rose at once and came to greet me, and then presented Lord Morton to me--yes, really not me to him; for the moment I was taken aback, I had expected something so different. I had formed an idea that the Earl was a man of great physical strength and size; instead I saw a small, slender man, tottering on his feet, weaker than a newly hatched Partridge; he welcomed me with tears in his eyes, held one of my hands and attempted speaking, which was difficult to him, the Countess meanwhile rubbing his other hand. I saw at a glance his situation and begged he would be seated, after which I was introduced to the mother of the Countess, Lady Boulcar, and I took a seat on a sofa that I thought would swallow me up, so much down swelled around me. It was a vast room, at least sixty feet long, and wide in proportion, let me say thirty feet, all hung with immense paintings on a rich purple ground; all was purple about me. The large tables were covered with books, instruments, drawing apparatus, and a telescope, with hundreds of ornaments. As I glanced at the pictures I could see the Queen of England fronting Mary of Scotland, a chamberlain here, a