It is said that in nunneries, where there is neither vice, nor the possibility of it, the ladies, if unable to talk real scandal, make up for it by censorious remarks upon the most trifling foibles in their companions, or upon the most unimportant failures in the performance of the most unimportant duties. If a holy sister has been observed to smile at a wrong moment, if she has miscounted a bead, or tripped in her gown while walking in a procession, there is as much prattle about it as if she had committed a real offence. Just so, in a country town, every trivial incident becomes a subject of comment for those amiable people who make a point of attending to every body’s business but their own. The consequence is, that every person moves in a country town as if he were upon an ambuscading party: he sends by stratagem for every necessary of life which he requires: he takes all kinds of by-ways and back roads to escape observation, and cannot so much as cross the street without fearing he will be circumvented. Any thing like a good round thumping impropriety is hailed in such a place like rain in a drought. The most of the matters of remark are very small deer, hardly worth hunting down. When one of a more important character arises, it is quite a godsend. Suppose, for instance, the failure of some unfortunate merchant, who has been ruined by mere simplicity of character. The country people, somehow, have a most exaggerated idea of the mischiefs of bankruptcy. A bankrupt, in their eyes, is a person of distinguished criminality—almost enough to make him be regarded as a world’s wonder. In proportion, therefore, to their previous remarks for the edification of the unhappy man, is their wholesome severity afterwards. They are surprised to find that, after such an event, he still bears the ordinary shape of a human being—that he has not become signalised by some external transfiguration, of a kind sufficiently awful to indicate his offence. Another thing they are astonished at—that the family of a bankrupt should continue to have the usual appetites of human beings—that they should not, indeed, have altogether ceased to eat, drink, or sleep. The following is very nearly a conversation which really occurred, on such an occasion, in a somewhat humble rank of mercantile life. “Weel, hae ye heard the news?” “What news, woman?” “Ou, hae ye no heard it?—James Sinclair’s shop’s no open this mornin’—that’s a’.”