me

this evening for her and Mrs. Dobson's inspection, and the dear creature came up-stairs, and ate bread from our hands, and looked about her with utmost discretion. Jane said, "How Miss W. would have liked to see her!" Indeed she is a perfect beauty, very like a deer, with a broad black stripe down the brown back, and a quite black head and face, with beautiful horns. You can imagine how Jane's young brother doats upon her, and indeed all Glen Rhydding visits her, pets and feeds. Billy lives at Quarry Bank, and I saw him this morning. The beauty of Place Fell's snowy top against the cloudless blue attracted me so that I set out at half past ten. I found Birnam sitting or rather lying in the field next but one to Quarry Bank. What takes him there no one knows. Apparently he was only enjoying the view; however, he was delighted to join me, and soon the four dogs ran to meet my Rap, in an ecstacy; and then Billy came running up too, for he is a most familiar goat, and expects bread given him, indeed knocks at the door with his horns when he wants it specially. Well, dear, excited by Burnaby, who cannot endure goats, the other dogs barked as he did, and the goat butted and bleated, and the hubbub was such that I was glad to rush into Quarry Bank, and there the dear little woman had much to tell me. There is something or other to do daily, and this might grow beyond my resources. I walked bravely to the top of the hill, but where the path ends the frozen snow began and was far too slippery for me. Nothing for it but coming back, but I was high enough to see Helvellyn looking glorious in his white mantle, and oh, how I "thanked God for the mountains." Sweet Rap would come with me, so dined here. He is quite well now, and I am very fond of him, with his gentle loving gaze, and bright smile — for my Edith knows it is quite a smile that shows the perfect teeth.

To Miss Edith Wrench.

1880.

I was much taken up last year with the conception of a room in the school-house here being made into a readingroom for the men of the township, who have no meetingplace except the public-house. And drunkenness is the scourge of the place. Of course if they do go to the public house they will drink. I had spoken to the policeman before I left, and told him to see what could be done, but when on my return he referred me to I gave up the idea, feeling I was too poor and powerless to carry it out. However on Saturday the idea revived, and A. R. and I are going to make a round and see whether a sufficient number take to the notion and are ready to subscribe three pence a week, to make it at all hopeful to move further. About ten shillings a week would I think cover the expenses, and surely Mr. would help on the

plan if the trustees of the school consented. I promised five pounds last winter towards books, etc., and really it is wonderful how I scramble on, though never pays or will, and the reading-room subscription would be annual, so long as one lives and has anything to live on.

To Mrs. Haughton.

[Dec. 20, 1879. After speaking of a sermon.] I write also on the other side of the page thoughts that it suggested as I walked up a lonely mountain valley this afternoon, walked in deep shadow and bitter frost, while the opposite side glowed in the rosy haze of a winter

sunset.

From the still sphere where dwells my highest hope,

Stand off, I pray you, nor disturb the air!

Lest, while you boast it living, it should die,
And I lose all, whose all is centred there.

Bring me no arguments, no reasoned proof;

How if their weakness cloud that sacred trust? Leave it to God alone to mark its growth

And keep it deathless — till I turn to dust.

Nor is this all-though more I dare not say,·
Words would but marshal thoughts to endless strife;
Enough, if, cherished in my being's core,

The silent hope may mould the lowly life.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THIS FRIENDLY WORLD.

To Lady Eastlake.

23 MELVILLE STREET, EDINBURGH, January 28, 1880.

WHAT a picture of endurance and defiance of all bodily ills these letters of Charles Dickens give. There may perhaps be too many of them given. It is scarce reverent to preserve the mere clippings and parings of any mind; but I, who am not critical, and who always felt Dickens a benefactor-such delight did those monthly numbers of his bring into many years of my restless life I love the man from first to last with a glow which is the best enjoyment one can have. I think that is, of all gifts that genius includes, the best-that power of awakening intense affection in the hearts of many — it is good for the many! I really lived in Dickens's letters, and I think they helped my recovery from a bad cough and cold. All our ailments come from low vitality least such as those and other minor evils, and if we could be quickened by any intense emotion they would mostly be conquered. Perhaps electricity, better understood, will ere long do directly what feelings of admiration and delight do in a roundabout way, and in the measure permitted by temperament even more than circumstance. "More life and fuller life we want." On Sunday last I got some very satisfactory stimulus of the kind from a volume of "Scotch Sermons" now going through the press, to be published by Macmillan. I should like you to read them, dear Lady Eastlake. To me they appear far in advance of Farrar's "Eternal Hope." But then I

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so dislike Farrar's turgid elaborate style, and his position seems to me that of a popularizer of other men's labours, without any acknowledgment of the fact that to break up the fallow ground and to sow alone, and with a consciousness of the censure and repugnance of even good men, was a far more arduous task than that of coming in to reap, nay, rather to glean. Farrar's restricted and arbitrary liberality of view (I am thinking of his St. Paul) is, however, the thin, very thin end of the wedge, and so that light comes in through the smallest chink we should be glad. But in the "Scotch Sermons" the attitude of the best men is quite bold and simple, and there is a reality about them, and a facing things as they are to the intellect of our day, in full faith that if we are true to our light we need not have any fear for the consequences, tho' we may be quite unable to foresee them. Oh, dear Lady Eastlake, to one who has loved and lost as you and I have, unutterably, there really can be no interests worth speaking of except those of the whence and the whither.

To Mrs. A. Constable.

CHISTLETON (CHESTER), March 3, 1880. Birnam's portrait excites rapturous applause. Fanny Newcome sees in him her ideal dog, and all delight in his dear phiz. Hessie was struck with my face as it passed her in the railway carriage; "something different," which she attributes to my freedom from cares, peace and light"-which, if it ever shine save in her kindly partial eyes, comes from

"the flame

Which burns the brighter that it burns unfed,"

66 a

And I have had so sheltered a winter with you and my dear, dear Archie!