_August_ 6.--Wrote to-day a very good day's work. Walked to Chiefswood, and saw old Mrs. Tytler,[314] a friend when life was young. Her husband, Lord Woodhouselee, was a kind, amiable, and accomplished man; and when we lived at Lasswade Cottage, soon after my marriage, we saw a great deal of the family, who were very kind to us as newly entered on the world.[315] Walked home, and worked in the evening; four leaves finished. _August_ 7.--My niece Anne leaves us this morning, summoned back from one scene of distress to another. Her uncle, David Macculloch, is extremely ill--a paralytic stroke, I fancy. She is a charming girl, lady-like in thought and action, and very pleasant in society. We are to dine to-day with our neighbours at Gattonside. Meantime I will avail myself of my disposition to labour, and work instead of journalising. Mr. H. Cranstoun[316] looked in a morning call. He is become extremely deaf. He gave me a letter from the Countess Purgstall, his sister, which I have not the heart to open, so many reproaches I have deserved for not writing. It is a sad thing, though, to task eyes as hard wrought as mine to keep up correspondence. Dined at Gattonside.[317] _August_ 8.--Wrote my task this morning, and now for walk. Dine to-day at Chiefswood; have company to-morrow. Why, this is dissipation! But no matter, Mrs. Duty, if the task is done. "Ay, but," says she, "you ought to do something extra--provide against a rainy day." Not I, I'll make a rainy day provide against a fair one, Mrs. Duty. I write twice as much in bad weather. Seriously, I write fully as much as I ought. I do not like this dull aching in the chest and the back, and its giving way to exercise shows that it originates in remaining too long in a sitting posture. So I'll take the field, while the day is good. _August_ 9.--I wrote only two leaves to-day, but with as many additions as might rank for three. I had a long and warm walk. Mrs. Tytler of Woodhouselee, the Hamiltons, and Colonel Ferguson dined here. How many early stories did the old lady's presence recall! She might almost be my mother, yet there we sat, like two people of another generation, talking of things and people the rest knew nothing of. When a certain period of life is survived, the difference of years between the survivors, even when considerable, becomes of much less consequence.