* * * * * * leaves us this morning after a visit of about a week. He improves on acquaintance, and especially seems so pleased with everything, that it would be very hard to quarrel with him. Certainly, as the Frenchman said, _il a un grand talent pour le silence_. I take the opportunity of his servant going direct to Rokeby to charge him with this letter, and a plaid which my daughters entreat you to accept of as a token of their _warm_ good wishes. Seriously you will find it a good bosom friend in an easterly wind, a black frost, or when your country avocations lead you to face a _dry wap of snow_. I find it by far the lightest and most comfortable integument which I can use upon such occasions. We had a grand jollification here last week;--the whole troop of Forest Yeomanry dining with us. I assure you the scene was gay and even grand, with glittering sabres, waving standards, and screaming bagpipes; and that it might not lack spectators of taste, who should arrive in the midst of the hurricane, but Lord and Lady Compton, whose presence gave a great zest to the whole affair. Everything went off very well, and as cavalry have the great advantage over infantry, that their _legs_ never get drunk, they retired in decent disorder about ten o'clock. I was glad to see Lord and Lady Compton so very comfortable, and surrounded with so fine a family, the natural bond of mutual regard and affection. She has got very jolly, but otherwise has improved on her travels. I had a long chat with her, and was happy to find her quite contented and pleased with the lot she has drawn in life. It is a brilliant one in many respects, to be sure; but still I have seen the story of the poor {p.293} woman, who, after all rational subjects of distress had been successively remedied, tormented herself about the screaming of a neighbor's peacock--I say, I have seen this so often realized in actual life, that I am more afraid of my friends making themselves uncomfortable, who have only imaginary evils to indulge, than I am for the peace of those who, battling magnanimously with real inconvenience and danger, find a remedy in the very force of the exertions to which their lot compels them.