Counsellor Erskine is returned, much pleased with your hospitality, and giving an excellent account of you. Were you not struck with the fantastical coincidence of our nocturnal disturbances at Abbotsford with the melancholy event that followed? I protest to you the noise resembled half-a-dozen men hard at work putting up boards and furniture, and nothing can be more certain than that there was nobody on the premises at the time. With a few additional touches, the story would figure in Glanville or Aubrey's Collection. In the mean time you may set it down with poor Dubisson's warnings,[105] as a remarkable coincidence coming under your own observation. I trust we shall see you this season. I think we could hammer a neat _comédie bourgeoise_ out of The Heart of Mid-Lothian. Mrs. Scott and family join in kind compliments to Mrs. Terry; and I am ever yours truly, Walter SCOTT. [Footnote 105: See _ante_, vol. iii. p. 220.] It appears from one of these letters to Terry, that, so late as the 30th of April, Scott still designed to include two separate stories in the second series of the Tales of my Landlord. But he must have changed his plan soon after that date; since the four volumes, entirely occupied with The Heart of Mid-Lothian, were before the public in the course of June. The story thus deferred, in consequence of the extent to which that of Jeanie Deans grew on his hands, was The Bride of Lammermoor. {p.236} CHAPTER XLI. Dinner at Mr. Home Drummond's. -- Scott's Edinburgh Den. -- Details of his Domestic Life in Castle Street. -- His Sunday Dinners. -- His Evening Drives, etc. -- His Conduct in the General Society of Edinburgh. -- Dinners at John Ballantyne's Villa, and at James Ballantyne's in St. John Street, on the Appearance of a New Novel. -- Anecdotes of the Ballantynes, and of Constable. 1818. On the 12th of May, as we have seen, Scott left Abbotsford, for the summer session in Edinburgh.