absent, was employed in assorting for delivery the letters which had come by the Edinburgh post. This is very often in country towns the period of the day when gossips find it particularly agreeable to call on the man or woman of letters, in order, from the outside of the epistles, and, if they are not belied, occasionally from the inside also, to amuse themselves with gleaning information, or forming conjectures about the correspondence and affairs of their neighbours. Two females of this description were, at the time we mention, assisting, or impeding, Mrs Mailsetter in her official duty. "Eh, preserve us, sirs!" said the butcher's wife, "there's ten-eleven-twall letters to Tennant & Co.-thae folk do mair business than a' the rest o' the burgh."

"Ay; but see, lass," answered the baker's lady, "there's twa o' them faulded unco square, and sealed at the tae side—I doubt there will be protested bills in them."

"Is there ony letters come yet for Jenny Caxon?" inquired the woman of joints and giblets; "the lieutenant's been awa three weeks."

"Just ane on Tuesday was a week," answered the dame of letters.

"Was't a ship-letter?" asked the Fornarina. "In troth was't."

"It wad be frae the lieutenant then," replied the mistress of the rolls, somewhat disappointed-"I never thought he wad hae lookit ower his shouther after her."

"Od, here's another," quoth Mrs Mailsetter. "A ship-letter-post-mark, Sunderland." All rushed to seize it." Na, na, leddies," said Mrs Mailsetter, interfering; "I hae had eneugh o' that wark -Ken ye that Mr Mailsetter got an unco rebuke frae the secretary at Edinburgh, for a complaint that was made about the letter of Aily Bisset's that ye opened, Mrs Shortcake?"

"Me opened!" answered the spouse of the chief baker of Fairport; ye ken yoursell, madam, it just cam open o' free will in my hand-what could I help it? folk suld seal wi' better wax."

"Weel I wot that's true, too," said Mrs Mailsetter, who kept a shop of small wares, " and we have got some that I can honestly recommend, if ye ken onybody wanting it. But the short and the lang o't is, that we'll lose the place gin there's ony mair complaints o' the kind."

"Hout, lass-the provost will take care o' that." "Na, na-I'll neither trust to provost nor bailie," said the postmistress," but I wad aye be obliging and neighbourly, and I'm no again your looking at the outside of a letter neither-See, the seal has an anchor on't-he's done't wi' ane o' his buttons, I'm thinking."

"Show me! show me!" quoth the wives of the chief butcher and chief baker; and threw themselves on the supposed love-letter, like the weird sisters in Macbeth upon the pilot's thumb, with curiosity as eager and scarcely less malignant. Mrs Heukbane was a tall woman-she held the precious epistle up between her eyes and the window. Mrs Shortcake, a little squat personage, strained and stood on tiptoe to have her share of the investigation.

"Ay, it's frae him, sure eneugh," said the butcher's lady;" I can read Richard Taffril on the corner, and it's written, like John Thomson's wallet, frae end to end."

"Haud it lower down, madam," exclaimed Mrs Shortcake, in a tone above the prudential whisper which their occupation required-" haud it lower down-Div ye think naebody can read hand o' writ but yoursell?"

"Whisht, whisht, sirs, for God's sake!" said Mrs Mailsetter, "there's somebody in the shop,"-then aloud-"Look to the customers, Baby!"-Baby answered from without in a shrill tone-" It's naebody but Jenny Caxon, ma'am, to see if there's ony letters to her."

"Tell her," said the faithful postmistress, wirking to her compeers, "to come back the morn at ten o'clock, and I'll let her ken- we havena had time to sort the mail letters yet-she's aye in sic a hurry, as if her letters were o' mair consequence than the best merchant's o' the town."

Poor Jenny, a girl of uncommon beauty and modesty, could only draw her cloak about her to hide the sigh of disappointment, and return meekly home to endure for another night the sickness of the heart occasioned by hope delayed.

"There's something about a needle and a pole,” said Mrs Shortcake, to whom her taller rival in gossiping had at length yielded a peep at the subject of their curiosity.

"Now, that's downright shamefu'," said Mrs Heukbane," to scorn the poor silly gait of a lassie after he's keepit company wi' her sae lang, and had his will o' her, as I make nae doubt he has."

"It's but ower muckle to be doubted," echoed Mrs Shortcake;" to cast up to her that her father's a barber, and has a pole at his door, and that she's but a manty-maker hersell! Hout! fy for shame!"

"Hout tout, leddies," cried Mrs Mailsetter, "ye're clean wrang-" It's a line out o' ane o' his sailors' sangs that I have heard him sing, about being true like the needle to the pole."

"Weel, weel, I wish it may be sae," said the charitable Dame Heukbane,-" but it disna look weeł for a lassie like her to keep up a correspondence wi' ane o' the king's officers."

"I'm no denying that," said Mrs Mailsetter; "but it's a great advantage to the revenue of the post-office thae love-letters. See, here's five or six letters to Sir Arthur Wardour-maist o' them sealed wi' wafers, and no wi' wax. There will be a downcome there, believe me."

"Ay; they will be business letters, and no frac ony o' his grand friends, that seals wi' their coats of arms, as they ca' them," said Mrs Heukbane;— "pride will hae a fa- he hasna settled his account wi' my gudeman, the deacon, for this twalmonthhe's but slink, I doubt."

"Nor wi' huz for sax months," echoed Mrs Shortcake-"He's but a brunt crust."

"There's a letter," interrupted the trusty postmistress, "from his son, the captain, I'm thinking the seal has the same things wi' the Knockwinnock carriage. He'll be coming hame to see what he can save out o' the fire."

The baronet thus dismissed, they took up the esquire-"Twa letters for Monkbarns-they're frae some o' his learned friends now; see sae close as they're written, down to the very seal-and a' to save sending a double letter-that's just like Monkbarns himsell. When he gets a frank he fills it up exact to the weight of an unce, that a carvyseed would sink the scale-but he's ne'er a grain

Information of the evening, which flew next morning through a hundred channels, and in a hundred varieties, through the world of Fairport. Many, strange, and inconsistent, were the rumours to which their communications and conjectures gave rise. Some said Tennant & Co. were broken, and that all their bills had come back protested-others that they had got a great contract from Government, and letters from the principal merchants at Glasgow, desiring to have shares upon a premium. One report stated, that Lieutenant Taffril had acknowledged a private marriage with Jenny Caxon -another, that he had sent her a letter upbraiding her with the lowness of her birth and education, and bidding her an eternal adieu. It was generally rumoured that Sir Arthur Wardour's affairs had fallen into irretrievable confusion, and this report was only doubted by the wise, because it was traced to Mrs Mailsetter's shop,-a source more famous for the circulation of news than for their accuracy. But all agreed that a packet from the Secretary of State's office had arrived, directed for Mr Lovel, and that it had been forwarded by an orderly dragoon, dispatched from the head-quarters at Edinburgh, who had galloped through Fairport without stopping, except just to inquire the way to Monkbarns. The reason of such an extraordinary mission to a very peaceful and retired individual, was variously explained. Some said Lovel was an emigrant noble, summoned to head an insurrection that had broken out in La Vendee-others that he was a spy-others that he was a general officer, who was visiting the coast privately-others that he was a prince of the blood, who was travelling incognito.

Meanwhile the progress of the packet which occasioned so much speculation, towards its destined owner at Monkbarns, had been perilous and interrupted. The bearer, Davie Mailsetter, as little resembling a bold dragoon as could well be imagined, was carried onwards towards Monkbarns by the pony, so long as the animal had in his recollection the crack of his usual instrument of chastisement, and the shout of the butcher's boy. But feeling how Davie, whose short legs were unequal to maintain his balance, swung to and fro upon his back, the pony began to disdain further compliance with the intimations he had received. First, then, he slackened his pace to a walk. This was no point of quarrel between him and his rider, who had been considerably discomposed by the rapidity of his former motion, and who now took the opportunity of his abated pace to gnaw a piece of gingerbread, which had been thrust into his hand by his mother in order to reconcile this youthful emissary of the post-office to the discharge of his duty. By and by, the crafty pony availed himself of this surcease of discipline to twitch the rein out of Davie's hands, and apply himself to browse on the grass by the side of the lane. Sorely astounded by these symptoms of self-willed rebellion, and afraid alike to sit or to fall, poor Davie lifted up his voice and wept aloud. The pony, hearing this pudder over his head, began apparently to think it would be best both for himself and Davie to return from whence they came, and accordingly commenced a retrograde movement towards Fairport. But, as all retreats are apt to end in utter route, so the steed, alarmed by the boy's cries, and by the flapping of the reins, which dangled about his forefeet-find

ing also his nose turned homeward, began to set off at a rate which, if Davie kept the saddle (a matter extremely dubious), would soon have presented him at Heukbane's stable-door,-when, at a turn of the road, an intervening auxiliary, in the shape of old Edie Ochiltree, caught hold of the rein, and stopped his farther proceeding. "Wha's aught ye, callant? whaten a gate's that to ride?" "I canna help it!" blubbered the express; "they ca' me little Davie."

"And where are ye gaun?"

"I'm gaun to Monkbarns wi' a letter." "Stirra, this is no the road to Monkbarns." But Davie could only answer the expostulation with sighs and tears.

Old Edie was easily moved to compassion where childhood was in the case.-"I wasna gaun that gate," he thought, "but it's the best o' my way o' life that I canna be weel out o' my road. They'll gie me quarters at Monkbarns readily eneugh, and I'll e'en hirple awa there wi' the wean, for it will knock its harns out, puir thing, if there's no somebody to guide the pony. -Sae ye hae a letter, hinney? will ye let me see't?"

"I'm no gaun to let naebody see the letter," sobbed the boy, "till I gie't to Mr Lovel, for I am a faithfu' servant o' the office-if it werena for the powny."

"Very right, my little man," said Ochiltree, turning the reluctant pony's head towards Monkbarns; "but we'll guide him atween us, if he's no a' the sweerer."

Upon the very height of Kinprunes, to which Monkbarns had invited Lovel after their dinner, the Antiquary, again reconciled to the once degraded spot, was expatiating upon the topics the scenery afforded for a description of Agricola's camp at the dawn of morning, when his eye was caught by the appearance of the mendicant and his protege. "What the devil!-here comes old Edie, bag and baggage, I think."

The beggar explained his errand, and Davie, who insisted upon a literal execution of his commission by going on to Monkbarns, was with difficulty prevailed upon to surrender the packet to its proper owner, although he met him a mile nearer than the place he had been directed to. "But my minnie said, I maun be sure to get twenty shillings and five shillings for the postage, and ten shillings and sixpence for the express-there's the paper."

"Let me see let me see," said Oldbuck, putting on his spectacles, and examining the crumpled copy of regulations to which Davie appealed. “Express, per man and horse, one day, not to exceed ten shillings and sixpence. One day? why, it's not an hour-Man and horse? why, 'tis a monkey on a starved cat!"

"Father wad hae come himsell," said Davie, "on the muckle red mear, an ye wad hae bidden till the morn's night."

"Four-and-twenty hours after the regular date of delivery! You little cockatrice egg, do you understand the art of imposition so early!" "Hout, Monkbarns! dinna set your wit against a bairn," said the beggar; "mind the butcher risked his beast, and the wife her wean, and I am sure ten and sixpence isna ower muckle. Ye didna gang sae near wi' Johnnie Howie, when"

Lovel, who, sitting on the supposed Prætorium, had glanced over the contents of the packet, now

put an end to the altercation by paying Davie's demand; and then turning to Mr Oldbuck, with a look of much agitation, he excused himself from returning with him to Monkbarns that evening."I must instantly go to Fairport, and perhaps leave it on a moment's notice ;-your kindness, Mr Oldbuck, I never can forget."

"No bad news, I hope?" said the Antiquary. "Of a very chequered complexion," answered his friend. "Farewell-in good or bad fortune I will not forget your regard."

"Nay, nay-stop a moment. If-if-"(making an effort)" if there be any pecuniary inconvenience I have fifty- —or a hundred guineas at your service-till-till Whitsunday—or indeed as long as you please."

sheriff sent his groom to put them into the postoffice at Tannonburgh; it's my puir thought, that he jaloused their looking into his letters at Fairport; and weel had he need, for my puir daughter Jenny"

"Tut, don't plague me with your womankind, Caxon. About this poor young lad-Does he write nothing but letters?"

"Ou, ay-hale sheets o' other things, Mrs Hadoway says. She wishes muckle he could be gotten to take a walk; she thinks he's but looking very puirly, and his appetite's clean gane; but he'll no hear o' ganging ower the door-stane-him that used to walk sae muckle too."

"That's wrong-I have a guess what he's busy about; but he must not work too hard neither. I'll go and see him this very day—he's deep, doubtless, in the Caledoniad."

"Very extraordinary indeed!" said Oldbuck;"but there's something about this lad I can never fathom; and yet I cannot for my heart think ill of neither. I must go home and take off the fire in the Green-Room, for none of my womankind will venture into it after twilight."

"And how am I to win hame?" blubbered the disconsolate express.

"It's a fine night," said the Blue-Gown, looking up to the skies; "I had as gude gang back to the town, and take care o' the wean."

"Do so, do so, Edie ;" and, rummaging for some time in his huge waistcoat pocket till he found the object of his search, the Antiquary added, "there's sixpence to ye to buy sneeshin."

CHAPTER XVI.

"I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal has not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; it could not be else. I have drunk medicines." Second Part of Henry IV,

REGULAR for a fortnight were the inquiries of the Antiquary at the veteran Caxon, whether he had heard what Mr Lovel was about; and as regular were Caxon's answers," that the town could learn naething about him whatever, except that he had received anither muckle letter or twa frae the south, and that he was never seen on the plainstanes at a"."

"How does he live, Caxon?"

“Ou, Mrs Hadoway just dresses him a beefsteak or a muttonchop, or makes him some Friar's chicken, or just what she likes hersell, and he eats it in the little red parlour off his bedroom. She canna get him to say that he likes ae thing better than anither; and she makes him tea in a morning, and he settles honourably wi' her every week.” "But does he never stir abroad?"

"He has clean gi'en up walking, and he sits a' day in his room reading or writing; a hantle letters he has written, but he wadna put them into our post-house, though Mrs Hadoway offered to carry them hersell, but sent them a' under ae cover to the sheriff; and it's Mrs Mailsetter's belief, that the

chosen for the motto of this chapter; for the Antiquary was himself rather surprised at the degree of attachment which he could not but acknowledge he entertained for this stranger. The riddle was notwithstanding easily solved. Lovel had many attractive qualities, but he won our Antiquary's heart by being on most occasions an excellent listener.

A walk to Fairport had become somewhat of an adventure with Mr Oldbuck, and one which he did not often care to undertake. He hated greetings in the market-place; and there were generally loiterers in the streets to persecute him, either about the news of the day, or about some petty pieces of business. So, on this occasion, he had no sooner entered the streets of Fairport, than it was "Goodmorrow, Mr Oldbuck-a sight o' you's gude for sair een: what d'ye think of the news in the Sun the day-they say the great attempt will be made in a fortnight."

"I wish to the Lord it were made and over, that I might hear no more about it."

"Monkbarns, your honour," said the nursery and seedsman, "I hope the plants gied satisfaction? and if ye wanted ony flower-roots fresh frae Holland, or" (this in a lower key)" an anker or twa o' Cologne gin, ane o' our brigs cam in yestreen."

"Thank ye, thank ye,- -no occasion at present, Mr Crabtree," said the Antiquary, pushing resolutely onward.

"Mr Oldbuck," said the town-clerk (a more important person, who came in front and ventured to stop the old gentleman)," the provost, understanding you were in town, begs on no account that you'll quit it without seeing him; he wants to speak to ye about bringing the water frae the Fairwellspring through a part o' your lands."

"What the deuce!-have they nobody's land but mine to cut and carve on?-I won't consent, tell them."

"And the provost," said the clerk, going on, without noticing the rebuff," and the council, wad be agreeable that you should hae the auld stanes at Donagild's chapel, that ye was wussing to hae." "Eh?what?- Oho! that's another storyWell, well, I'll call upon the provost, and we'll talk about it."

"But ye maun speak your mind on't forthwith, Monkbarns, if ye want the stanes; for Deacon

Harlewalls thinks the carved through-stanes might be put with advantage on the front of the new council-house-that is, the twa cross-legged figures that the callants used to ca' Robin and Bobbin, ane on ilka door-cheek; and the other stane, that they ca'd Ailie Dailie, abune the door. It will be very tastefu', the Deacon says, and just in the style of modern Gothic."

"Lord deliver me from this Gothic generation!" exclaimed the Antiquary," A monument of a knight-templar on each side of a Grecian porch, and a Madonna on the top of it ! —O crimini !Well, tell the provost I wish to have the stones, and we'll not differ about the water-course. It's lucky I happened to come this way to-day."

They parted mutually satisfied; but the wily clerk had most reason to exult in the dexterity he had displayed, since the whole proposal of an exchange between the monuments (which the council had determined to remove as a nuisance, because they encroached three feet upon the public road), and the privilege of conveying the water to the burgh through the estate of Monkbarns, was an idea which had originated with himself upon the pressure of the moment.

Through these various entanglements, Monkbarns (to use the phrase by which he was distinguished in the country) made his way at length to Mrs Hadoway's. This good woman was the widow of a late clergyman at Fairport, who had been reduced, by her husband's untimely death, to that state of straitened and embarrassed circumstances in which the widows of the Scotch clergy are too often found. The tenement which she occupied, and the furniture of which she was possessed, gave her the means of letting a part of her house; and as Lovel had been a quiet, regular, and profitable lodger, and had qualified the necessary intercourse which they had together with a great deal of gentleness and courtesy, Mrs Hadoway, not, perhaps, much used to such kindly treatment, had become greatly attached to her lodger, and was profuse in every sort of personal attention which circumstances permitted her to render him. To cook a dish somewhat better than ordinary for " the poor young gentleman's dinner;" to exert her interest with those who remembered her husband, or loved her for her own sake and his, in order to procure scarce vegetables, or something which her simplicity supposed might tempt her lodger's appetite, was a labour in which she delighted, although she anxiously concealed it from the person who was its object. She did not adopt this secrecy of benevolence to avoid the laugh of those who might suppose that an oval face and dark eyes, with a clear brown complexion, though belonging to a woman of five-andforty, and enclosed within a widow's close-drawn pinners, might possibly still aim at making conquests; for, to say truth, such a ridiculous suspicion having never entered into her own head, she could not anticipate its having birth in that of any one else. But she concealed her attentions solely out of delicacy to her guest, whose power of repaying them she doubted as much as she believed in his inclination to do so, and in his being likely to feel extreme pain at leaving any of her civilities unrequited. She now opened the door to Mr Oldbuck, and her surprise at seeing him brought tears into her eyes, which she could hardly restrain.

"I am glad to see you, sir-I am very glad to

see you. My poor gentleman is, I am afraid, very unwell; and O Mr Oldbuck, he'll see neither doctor, nor minister, nor writer! And think what it would be, if, as my poor Mr Hadoway used to say, a man was to die without advice of the three learned faculties!"

"Greatly better than with them," grumbled the cynical Antiquary. "I tell you, Mrs Hadoway, the clergy live by our sins, the medical faculty by our diseases, and the law gentry by our misfortunes." "O fie, Monkbarns!-to hear the like o' that frae you!-But ye'll walk up and see the poor young lad?- Hegh sirs! sae young and weel-favouredand day by day he has eat less and less, and now he hardly touches onything, only just pits a bit on the plate to make fashion,—and his poor cheek has turned every day thinner and paler, sae that he now really looks as auld as me, that might be his mother-no that I might be just that neither, but something very near it."

"Why does he not take some exercise?" said Oldbuck.

"I think we have persuaded him to do that, for he has bought a horse from Gibbie Golightly, the galloping groom. A gude judge o' horse-flesh Gibbie tauld our lass that he was-for he offered him a beast he thought wad answer him weel eneugh, as he was a bookish man, but Mr Lovel wadna look at it, and bought ane might serve the Master o' Morphie-they keep it at the Græme's Arms, ower the street;-and he rode out yesterday morning and this morning before breakfast-But winna ye walk up to his room?"

"Presently, presently. But has he no visitors?" "O dear, Mr Oldbuck, not ane; if he wadna receive them when he was weel and sprightly, what chance is there of onybody in Fairport looking in upon him now?"

66

Ay, ay, very true-I should have been surprised had it been otherwise-Come, show me up stairs, Mrs Hadoway, lest I make a blunder, and go where I should not."

The good landlady showed Mr Oldbuck up her narrow staircase, warning him of every turn, and lamenting all the while that he was laid under the necessity of mounting up so high. At length she gently tapped at the door of her guest's parlour. "Come in," said Lovel; and Mrs Hadoway ushered in the Laird of Monkbarns.

The little apartment was neat and clean, and decently furnished-ornamented, too, by such relics of her youthful arts of sempstress-ship as Mrs Hadoway had retained; but it was close, overheated, and, as it appeared to Oldbuck, an unwholesome situation for a young person in delicate health,-an observation which ripened his resolution touching a project that had already occurred to him in Lovel's behalf. With a writing-table before him, on which lay a quantity of books and papers, Lovel was seated on a couch, in his night-gown and slippers. Oldbuck was shocked at the change which had taken place in his personal appearance. His cheek and brow had assumed a ghastly white, except where a round bright spot of hectic red formed a strong and painful contrast, totally different from the general cast of hale and hardy complexion which had formerly overspread and somewhat embrowned his countenance. Oldbuck observed, that the dress he wore belonged to a deep mourning suit, and a coat of the same colour hung on a chair near