Thus we got established in our new quarters; and many a long ramble I took with Harry along those strange superannuated walls.--To think how they once stood up desperate, in defence, round the brave little town! to think of the wild Welsh raging outside on that tranquil turf, where the races were now-a-days; to think of those secure streets down there, that lengthened themselves out presumptuously beyond the ramparts, and even cut passages through them, once cowering in alarm below their shadow! The place quite captivated me; and then the streets themselves, the strange dark covered pathways, steps up from the street, with the shops lurking in their shadow! like some of the German towns, Harry told me. Looking into them from the street, and seeing the stream of passengers coming and going, through the openings and heavy wooden beams of the railing; or looking out of one of those openings upon a kind of street-scenes and life that had nothing in the world to do with the strange old-world arcade, from which one looked out as from a balcony, was as good as reading a book about ancient times. It was not like my dear Edinburgh, to be sure, but it was very captivating; and Harry and I enjoyed exploring together. It was all new and fresh to us--and it was spring; and when you have nothing to trouble you much, it is delightful to see new places, and get new pictures into the mind. Chester was quite as novel, and fresh, and captivating, though it was only in our own country, as that German Munich which Harry told me of--Harry had been a great traveller before he joined, while his father was so long ill--could have been. Lizzie, however, was not nearly so much at her ease as I was. When she felt herself laughed at, and looked at, and misunderstood, Lizzie fell back into her chronic state of awkwardness. Her national pride was driven to enthusiasm by her contact with “thae English.” Lizzie entertained a steady disbelief that the tongue in which she heard everybody speak--which was far enough from being a refined one, however,--was their native and natural speech. “They were a’ speaking grand for a purpose o’ their ain, to make folk believe they were lords and leddies,” Lizzie said; and with a still higher pitch of indignation, “Mem, _you_ aye understood me, though you’re an English leddy; and think o’ the like o’ them setting up no’ to understand what _your_ lass means when she’s speaking! I dinna understand _them_, I’m sure,--no half a dozen words. To hear that clippit English, and the sharp tongues they have, deaves me. The very weans in the street they’ve nae innocence in them. They’re a’ making a fashion of speaking as fine as you.” “Never mind, Lizzie; you’ll soon get accustomed to them, and make friends,” said I, with an attempt at consolation.