One thing is remarkable. The most determined scandal is bandied about respecting their ancient neighbours; and yet they all conspire to think that there is no sort of people to be compared with them in the mass. They will let nobody talk ill of them but themselves. There is sometimes a considerable difference in the characters and ranks of the individuals who frequent a Consul-house. Perhaps you find, among persons of higher degree and more dignified age, apprentice lads, who, being the children of old acquaintances of the Consul, are recommended by their mothers to spend their Sunday evenings here, as under a vicarial eye of supervision, and being sure to be out of harm’s way in the house of so respectable a person. These stolid youths, with their raw untamed faces, form a curious contrast, occasionally, to the more polished individuals who have been longer about town, such as writers’ clerks or licentiates of the church. Possibly they will sit you out five mortal hours in a Consul-house, without ever speaking a word, or even shifting their position on their chairs, staring with unvaried eyes, and hands compressed between knees, right into the centre of the room, and hearing all that is going on as if they heard not. At length the young cub rises to go away, and the only remark is, “Well, Willie, are you going home? Good-night.” After which, the Consul only remarks to the adults around her, “That’s ane o’ John Anderson’s laddies—a fine quiet callant.” But this holds good only respecting Consuls in a certain walk of life. There are houses where people of very high _style_, from a particular district, are wont to call and converse; and there are dens in the inferior parts of the town, to which only serving girls or boys (there is no rank among boys) resort. Every place, every rank, has its Consul. And not only is the Consul valuable as an individual who keeps a Sunday evening conversazione. She actually does a great deal of business for the particular district which she represents. If a townswoman wants a gown dyed, or to obtain _swatches_ of some new prints, or to purchase any peculiar article which requires some address in the purchasing, then is the Consul resorted to. A little square inexplicable epistle, with not nearly enough of fold to admit a wafer, and the phrase “for goods” on the corner, supposed to be a kind of shibboleth that exempts letters from the laws of the Post-office, comes in with the carrier, requesting that Mrs —— will be so good as go to this or that shop, and do this and that and t’other thing, and send the whole out by return of Pate Fairgrieve, and the payment will be rendered at next visit to town. Thus the Consul is a vast commission-agent, with only this difference, that she makes nothing by it to compensate her immense outlay of capital. The duties, however, of the Consulate are their own reward; and we doubt if Brutus, who first assumed the office, bore it with a prouder head