CUTHBERT CHARTERIS, much against his will, was detained a week longer in Glasgow. His uncle, a man of unbounded hospitality, an almost invariable characteristic of his class, was not without a little family pride in Cuthbert’s attainments and position--and such a succession of people had been already invited to “meet” Mr. Buchanan’s advocate nephew, that Cuthbert’s good humour, though already sufficiently taxed, would not suffer him to disappoint them.--Neither was it until the very last evening of the week, when he had made positive arrangements for going to Ayr next day, that he had leisure to call on the Muirs. The sun was setting on the soft April evening, and the slanting level sunbeams streamed through the dusty streets, drawing out in long shadows the outline of the houses. Within these shadows the bystanders felt almost the chill of winter, while in the sunshine at the street corners, lounging groups congratulated each other that summer had come at last. Here the light fell on a white “mutch” or two, and on the sun-burnt heads of innumerable children, of whose boisterous play the gossip mothers took no notice.--There it glimmered and sparkled in braids and curls, and plaits of beautiful hair which a _coiffeur_ might have studied for the benefit of his art, and which you could scarcely fancy the short thick toil-hardened fingers of these laughing mill-girls able to produce. But toilsome as their factory life was, it had its edge of enjoyment, quite as bright and enlivening as the evening recreations of any other class--and with those young engineer workmen clustering around them, and the evening sunshine and the hum of continual sound--sound which expressed repose and sport, and scarcely had the least admixture of the laborious din of full day--filling the atmosphere, there were many scenes less pleasant and less graceful, than the street corner and its groups of mill-girls. And here, up the broad road, now almost free of the carts which usually crowd it, dashes at full speed a bright little equipage glowing in green and gold, which draws up with a flourish at the corner. Straightway the “closemouths,” and “common stairs” pour forth a stream of girls and women, carrying vessels of every form and size, from the small china cream-jug from some lonely lady’s tea-table, to the great pitcher under which little Mary staggers as she carries it home in her arms to supply the porridge of a dozen brothers and sisters; and you never were refreshed with richer milk under the deepest umbrage of summer trees, than that which gives forth its balmy stream from the pretty green barrels hooped with brilliant brass, which rest upon the light framework of the Port Dundas dairy cart.