'Oh, Julia! such pretty flowers! What should I do without your kind clever fingers to brighten my room for me? Have you seen the visitor my General has brought me? But of course not. She is bathing and dressing, and what not. The poor child seemed actually dripping when General Drysdale brought her in;--found her in the mist! Away up on Craig Findochart. I have handed her over to Briggs, and by and by I hope she will be able to see us. So nice to have somebody arrive this dismal afternoon. I really felt too dawny even to open the new book box from London, and as for my knitting, the stitches wouldn't count somehow, and that fool Briggs went and dropped some of them in trying to put it right, and altogether the appearance of a new face has made a most pleasing variety. You remember Mary Brown, of course,--a nice little girl, and very like her poor mother. A great friend of mine her mother was--a most dear woman. I believe I miss her sadly still, sometimes. In fact, I always do miss the Browns when I see the new people that have come to the manse,--not, my dear, that I would have you imagine I could undervalue any clergyman of our national church. Indeed, I consider it an honour to be able to contribute to its well-being in these levelling times, when if we who have a stake in the country do not support the Church, we shall have the State too tumbling in about our ears. Those dreadful levellers seem to reverence nothing, wanting to repeal the Corn Laws, and to call their dissenting meeting-places churches! and putting steeples on them, and actually ringing bells. What is to become of the British constitution if every dissenting chapel is to have a steeple and call itself a church, and ring a bell? As my dear General says sometimes, I think the flood gates must be opening. If it was only the English chapels, it would be of less consequence. You know my brother Pitthevlis is an Episcopalian, and I belonged to that Church till my marriage (the Drysdales have always held to the Establishment and the Revolution Settlement), not to mention that it is the Established form across the Border; but that every little gathering of impudent seceder bodies is to hang up its kettle and deave the whole parish, whenever it wishes to say its prayers, I consider it most improper, and neither to the glory of God or man. And therefore, my dear, I would be most scrupulous in paying the clergy every attention. Still, when I asked Mrs. Snodgrass and her children to come up and eat strawberries one summer's day, you may remember it, I could not but think of poor dear Mrs. Brown, and miss her sadly. I think in future I shall _send_ my strawberries to Mrs. Snodgrass. I believe she would rather eat them at home, and I know _I_ shall prefer it. Then it was so convenient in Dr. Brown's time, whenever a gentleman was required to make up the number at dinner, he would come so obligingly on the shortest notice, and be