the room before the last bell rang. The innocent creature mildly said, she had been in the garden with Sir Murdock, who had detained her. Why was Lady Maclairn silent? Ought she not to have checked Miss Flint in the display of an ill humour, for which the cause was so trifling? I wish to see more of a decided protection in her manner to this poor girl. Her civility does not content me, and I sometimes fancy there is a _servility_ in her observances, that marks a little mind. I have well earned my promised recompence. I shall expect a long detail of Horace’s adventures by sea and land: if you fail, farewell to your gossiping historian, RACHEL COWLEY. CHAP VI. LETTER VI. _From the same to the same._ Since my last, I have had some conversation with Mr. Malcolm Maclairn, which, as it interested me, will make the subject of my present lucubrations. He returned home last night from an excursion which almost immediately followed my arrival here. I met him this morning in the garden, and he joined me. After civilly apologizing for an absence from home so soon after I was his mother’s guest, he said, his father had not been for many years in a state of health which admitted of any interruption by business. “But,” added he, with seriousness, “with what satisfaction do I now devote my time to his ease and comfort, when I compare his present condition with the sufferings of his mind that I have witnessed! This morning he was not only curious to learn the success of my little journey, but conversed with me on the subject of it with precision and interest. In time his long habits of seclusion and indolence will yield to the natural energy of his character, and the activity of his mind. I have cherished this hope, Miss Cowley, from the hour I was capable of reflecting on the nature and operations of my father’s malady. I never could believe he was what he was called, nor that his case was incurable lunacy. The event has justified my opinion. After many years of suffering under the most afflicting hypochondriacal attacks, he was suddenly seized by a violent fever, which for many days baffled medicine, and repressed every hope; the crisis was favourable. We were prepared to expect not only extreme weakness in his bodily powers, but also that debility of mind which inseparably belongs to a state of nearly renovated existence. He remained for a time a mere infant; but we perceived that with his increasing strength, his mind was clear from those gloomy images which had so long obscured it. He continued to gain strength; but unfortunately his memory, too faithful for his advantage, represented the scenes which had passed. He became painfully susceptible to a sense of humiliation the most unfriendly to his perfect recovery. No arguments could prevail on him to appear, even