With such visions of future journeyings in strange lands the year 1884 had drawn to a close. The “breakdown at Moscow,” referred to above, though it so far balked the plans of the travellers, does not appear to have materially lessened the pleasure of their trip. In a letter of Mr. Simon Fraser MacLeod, I find allusions only to “our visit to this delightful and picturesque old city of Moscow.” The view of it from the Kremlin surpassed in its novel and singularly picturesque aspect anything ever seen by them before. They saw also a no less novel illustration of sacred art, thus described by the same young traveller: “The Church of the Assumption is a golden pile assuredly; and besides the head of a nail from the true cross, and a portion of the Virgin’s mantle, it contains a sacred painting by St. Luke, the beloved physician. He may have excelled in his latter profession; but prepared as we were to find any merits in his painting of the holy mother, we could not discover even the lines of a face or any pretence of a likeness possible through the rawness of the colours used by the evangelist in those early and primitive days of art. Mr. Nelson, by the aid of a candle dimly burning, thought at one time he had discovered something resembling a beautiful face; but on my suggesting that it was but the reflection of his own expressive features that he saw, we came to the conclusion that such was the actual state of the matter.” All was novel, interesting, and delightful; for the tour was to prove for two bright young members of the party the prelude to their joining hand in hand to enter together on the journey of life. They shared in the Glenfeochan holiday of the following summer, where their own final arrangements were settled, to the satisfaction of all; and so with pleasant memories and brightest hopes the family gathered once more round the cheerful hearth of Salisbury Green. CHAPTER XIV. _PROJECTED TRAVEL--THE END_. The route from Oban to Edinburgh passes through some of the most beautiful and romantic scenes of Scottish landscape: by the Pass of Brander, Loch Awe, St. Fillans, and Doune Castle, to Stirling; and then by Bannockburn, the Strath of Falkirk, and the old Nelson homestead of Throsk, to “the gray metropolis of the north.” After a few days or weeks of zealous exploration around Glenfeochan, or off to neighbouring islands and more distant glens, in the fashion already described, a run into Edinburgh was a welcome change. There William Nelson was equally at home when making a pleasure of business or a business of his most favourite pleasures.