“Do you know that there are not more than 160,000 families in Great Britain deriving any income at all from trade, manufactures, and professions?” “No more than that? And, to be sure, many of these must be so rich that they can very well bear such interference.” “Not so many,” replied her husband, smiling. “Fewer than 4000 have more than 1000_l._ a year; and not more than 40,000 have an income above 150_l._ a year.” “Leaving 120,000 with an income below 150_l._ a year. These last must feel the effect of restraint very much; and I think, if there are no more than you say, that all must feel it more or less.” “And through them many that have nothing to do with trade,” observed Walter, looking sorrowfully at a favourite shrub which was already dropping its yellow leaves. “What a mistake it seems, Effie, to be lighting those red and yellow fires within sight of this brimming blue river, and the sloping banks, that look so green in the evening sun! What a cruelty it seems to be sending puffs of smoke over the water to touch and shrivel this hanging laburnum, that you put into the ground!” Effie well remembered the planting of that laburnum. When she and Walter were children, and used to bring wild strawberries from the wood, and plant the roots at noon, shading them from the hot sun under a suspended pinafore; when Effie used to dig a pond which would hold no water, and Walter a grave in which he used to lie down to see what being buried was like; when they mounted the wheel-barrow to look over the hedge, and count how many left legs were jerked backwards as the keelmen pulled the oars in the keels that passed;—in those old days, somebody had given Effie a few lupin seeds, which Walter carefully planted, while Effie stuck in a twig—dead, as she thought—to mark the spot. This twig burst into leaf, and grew into the tall laburnum which was now waving its branches against the blue sky; and every time that Effie had looked upon it, a feeling of complacency had come over her, as if she had performed a feat—given life to a tree, or been the occasion of a miracle. There was scarcely a growing thing in Walter’s beautiful garden that she would not have devoted to the smoke in preference. The smoke looked surly and encroaching as it rose and spread itself in the darkening sky, after the sun had gone down. It did not, however, deter Effie from going into the midst of it, when it was really too late for Walter to work any more, and he could attend to the ferry while she just ran to tell her mother that uncle Christopher was gone; that Cuddie and he had been watched in safety a good way down the river, and that tidings of their further voyage might be soon expected by letter. CHAPTER IV. EPISTOLARY GODLINESS. The letter arrived quite as soon as expected. “My dear son and daughter,