"The Greys and Rowlands go on much as usual, the gentlemen of the family agreeing very well, and the ladies rather the reverse. The great grievance this spring has been, that Mrs Rowland has seen fit to enlarge her hall, and make a porch to her door. Her neighbours are certain that, in the course of her alterations, every principal beam of her house has been cut through, and that the whole will fall in. No such catastrophe has yet occurred, however. I have not been called in to set any broken bones; and I have not much expectation of an accident, as Mr Rowland understands building too well to allow his house to be cut down over his head. As for the porch, I do not perceive what can be alleged to its disadvantage, but that some people think it ugly. "Here I must cease my gossip. I regularly begin my letters with the intention of telling you all that I hear and see out of my profession but I invariably stop short, as I do now, from disgust at the nonsense I should have to write. It is endurable enough to witness; for one thing quickly dismisses another, and some relief occurs from the more amiable or intellectual qualities of the parties concerned: but I hate detail in writing; and I never do get through the whole list of particulars that I believe you would like to have. You must excuse me now, and take my word for it, in the large, that we are all pretty much what we were when you saw us three years ago, except of course, being three years older, and some few of us three years wiser. It will be a satisfaction to you also to know that my practice has made a very good growth for the time. You liked my last year's report of it. It has increased more since that time than even during the preceding year; and I have no further anxiety about my worldly prospects. I am as well satisfied with my choice of an occupation in life as ever. Mine has its anxieties, and _desagremens_, as others have: but I am convinced I could not have chosen better. You saw, when you were with me, something of the anxiety of responsibility; what it is, for instance, to await the one or the other event of a desperate case: and I could tell you a good deal that you do not and cannot know of the perils, and troubles attendant upon being the depository of so much domestic and personal confidence as my function imposes upon me the necessity of receiving. I sometimes long to be able to see nothing but what is apparent to all in society; to perceive what is ostensible, and to dream of nothing more,--not exactly like children, but like the members of large and happy families, who carry about with them the purity and peace of their homes, and therefore take cognisance of the pure and peaceful only whom they meet abroad; but it is childish, or indolent, or cowardly, to desire this. While there is private vice and wretchedness, and domestic misunderstanding, one