Produced by Anne Grieve, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) ROUND THE SOFA. BY THE AUTHOR OF “Mary Barton,” “Life of Charlotte Bronte,” &c. &c. TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON & CO., 47 LUDGATE HILL. 1859. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET. PREFACE. Most of these Stories have already appeared in <i>Household Words</i>: one, however, has never been published in England, and another has obtained only a limited circulation. ROUND THE SOFA. Long ago I was placed by my parents under the medical treatment of a certain Mr. Dawson, a surgeon in Edinburgh, who had obtained a reputation for the cure of a particular class of diseases. I was sent with my governess into lodgings near his house, in the Old Town. I was to combine lessons from the excellent Edinburgh masters, with the medicines and exercises needed for my indisposition. It was at first rather dreary to leave my brothers and sisters, and to give up our merry out-of-doors life with our country home, for dull lodgings, with only poor grave Miss Duncan for a companion; and to exchange our romps in the garden and rambles through the fields for stiff walks in the streets, the decorum of which obliged me to tie my bonnet-strings neatly, and put on my shawl with some regard to straightness.