lump of the Dalmahoy hills. If we just step to the end of the house, we are into the fields; and then we’ll be so very quiet here, compared with what we were. Not a carriage or a cart passing from morning till night. We’ll get some rest at last; and truth to tell, my health is in great need of it. How truly delightful thus to get fairly out of that black, smoky, noisy town, to a place where we can enjoy all the pleasures of the country, and yet be within reach of every convenience of the city! And just consider how much benefit the walk must be to your own health. We formerly lived so near your place of business, that you got no exercise at all, seeing that I never could prevail upon you to take a walk on purpose. But here you _must_ walk, and the good it must do you will be visible in a week’s time,”—&c. &c. &c. If the case has been totally the reverse, you are addressed as follows:—“How delightful to get fairly away from that cold, out-of-the-world, dull place, and once more feel ourselves snug in the town! We’ve no prospects here from the windows; but, ’deed, when folk have prospects, I never see that they make much use of them. For my part, I never looked out of the drawing-room windows once in the month; for what are the Fife hills or North Berwick Law after one has once seen them? [What philosophy we have here!] And then, what good did we get from the garden? It was just a fash to keep right; and I’m sure, when we had paid the gardener, we did not make a penny off the vegetables. Now, here, although there be little prospect from any of the windows, we’re at least a great deal better protected from the wind. If we have not a garden of our own, have we not the green market almost at the door? And such a weary distance you had to walk every day! No more of that now. Here, when you want a walk, you can take one; and when you don’t like, you can let it alone. Walks are very well, perhaps, in good summer weather; but I’ve no idea of seeing you plash through a long dirty road twice every day through the whole winter. Whenever we want either a walk or a prospect, we’ll get it in the Queen Street gardens; for you know Mrs —— has told me that we may have her key whenever we like. In our old ill-contrived house, we had no place to put any thing off our hand; not so much as a cupboard in the whole house; but now, you see, we have as many presses as rooms, and a capital cellar for coals and lumber. And how near we are here to all the best shops! If it were for nothing but the convenience of getting tea-bread at a minute’s warning from Mr Littlejohn, the baker, whenever any person calls upon us in the evening, it would have been worth while to remove to this house. The lass likewise tells me that there is a very obliging woman, quite at hand, who keeps a mangle for the use of the neighbourhood, which will be a great convenience to the family; and that she will take in hand to supply us with milk or cream at any hour of the day,”—&c. &c. &c. Thus,