I was now nineteen. I had completed the usual curriculum of study at one of the Scotch universities; and, possessed of a fair knowledge of mathematics and physics, and what I considered rather more than a good foundation of classical and metaphysical acquirement, I resolved to apply for the first suitable situation that offered. But I was spared even this trouble in the matter. Through a circuitous channel, a certain Lord Hilton, an English nobleman, residing in one of the southern counties of England, having heard that one of my father’s sons was desirous of such a situation, wrote to him, offering me the post of tutor to his two boys, of the ages of ten and twelve. He had himself been partly educated at a Scotch university; and this, it may be, had prejudiced him in favour of a Scotch tutor; while an ancient alliance of the families by marriage was supposed by my nurse to be the cause of his offering me the post. Of this connection, however, my father said nothing to me, and it went for nothing in my anticipations. I was to receive a hundred pounds a year, and to hold in the family the position of a gentleman; which might mean anything or nothing, according to the disposition of the heads of the family. Preparations for my departure were immediately commenced; and I set out one evening for the cottage of my old nurse, to bid her good-bye for many months, or probably years. I was to leave the next day for Edinburgh, on my way to London, whence I had to repair by coach to my new abode—almost to me like the land beyond the grave, so little did I know about it, and so wide was the separation between it and my home. The evening was sultry when I began my walk, and before I arrived at nurse’s cottage, the clouds rising from all quarters of the horizon, and especially gathering around the peaks of the mountain, betokened the near approach of a thunder-storm. This was a great delight to me. Gladly would I take leave of my home with the memory of a last night of tumultuous magnificence, followed, probably, by a day of weeping rain, well suited to the mood of my own heart in bidding farewell to the best of parents and the dearest of homes. Besides, in common with most Scotchmen who are young and hardy enough to be unable to realize to themselves the existence of coughs and rheumatic fevers, it was a positive pleasure to me to be out in rain, hail, or snow. “I am come to bid you good-bye, Margaret, and to hear the story which you promised to tell me before I left home: I go to-morrow.” “Do you go so soon, my darling? Well, it will be an awful night to tell it in; but, as I promised, I suppose I must.” At the moment, down the wide chimney fell two or three great drops of rain, with slight explosions upon the clear turf-fire, the first of the storm.