"You can not imagine how different every thing is here to England. I hope, however, in time to get on pretty well. There is, nevertheless, a deal to do. I have never been accustomed to housekeeping, and here every thing must be seen to by yourself; it matters not what it is, it must be kept under lock and key. I get up at seven, breakfast at eight, and give out flour, butter, sugar, all from the store. I have found the bag you gave me so useful to hold the keys, of which I have a little army. We live almost entirely on chickens and ducks, for if a sheep be killed it must be all eaten that day. The bread is very good: they use palm wine for yeast. Yams are a capital substitute for potatoes; pies and puddings are scarce thought of, unless there is a party. The washing has been a terrible trouble, but I am getting on better. I have found a woman to wash some of the things, but the men do all the starching and ironing. Never did people require so much looking after. Till Mr. Maclean comes in from court at seven, I never see a living creature but the servants. * * * The weather is now very warm; the nights so hot that you can only bear the lightest sheet over you. As to the beds, the mattresses are so hard, they are like iron. The damp is very destructive; the dew is like rain, and there are no fireplaces: you would not believe it, but a grate would be the first of luxuries. Keys, scissors, every thing rusts. * * * I find the servants civil, and not wanting in intelligence, but industry. Each has servants to wait on him, whom they call sense-boys, _i.e._, they wait on them to be taught. Scouring is done by the prisoners. Fancy three men employed to clean a room, which, in England, an old woman could do in an hour, while a soldier stands over them with a drawn bayonet." Such was the last strange, solitary home of L. E. L.; such the strange life of one who had been before employed only in diffusing her beautiful fancies amid her countrymen. Here she was rising at seven, giving out flour, sugar, etc. from the stores, seeing what room she would have cleaned, and then sitting down to write. In the midst of this new species of existence, she is suddenly plunged into the grave, leaving the wherefore a wonder. The land which was the attraction of her childhood, singularly enough, thus became her sepulcher. A marble slab, with a Latin inscription, is said to be erected there by her husband; and in Brompton Church a monument has been placed by her admiring friends. [Illustration: Abbotsford] SIR WALTER SCOTT.