almost in my face and said, “there’s hoals in’t, an’ ye can jest let it down to yer own satisfaction if ye fin’ it gets clos.”  Then he rattled it up again, mounted the box, and off we went.  Oh, such a jolting drive of six miles!  Such wrenching over tramway lines!  But I had my fine air-cushions, and my spine must simply be another thing to what it was six months back.  Oh, he was funny!  I found that he did NOT know the way to Thornliebank, but having a general idea, and a (no doubt just) faith in his own powers, he swore he did know, and utterly resented asking bystanders.  After we got far away from houses, on the bleak roads in the dark night, I merely felt one must take what came.  By and by he turned round and began to retrace his steps.  I put out my head (as I did at intervals to his great disgust; he always pitched well into me—­“We’re aal right—­just com—­pose yeself,” etc.), but he assured me he’d only just gone by the gate.  So by and by we drew up, no lights in the lodge, no answer to shouts—­then he got down, and in the darkness I heard the gates grating as if they had not been opened for a century.  Then under overhanging trees, and at last in the dim light I saw that the walls were broken down and weeds were thick round our wheels.  I could bear it no longer, and put out my head again, and I shall never forget the sight.  The moon was coming a little bit from behind the clouds, and showed a court-yard in which we had pulled up, surrounded with buildings in ruins, and overgrown with nettles and rank grass.  We had not seen a human being since we left Glasgow, at least an hour before,—­and of all the places to have one’s throat cut in!!  The situation was so tight a place, it really gave one the courage of desperation, and I ordered him to drive away at once.  I believe he was half frightened himself, and the horse ditto, and never, never was I in anything so nearly turned over as that cab! for the horse got it up a bank.  At last it was righted, but not an inch would my Scotchman budge till he’d put himself through the window and confounded himself in apologies, and in explanations calculated to convince me that, in spite of appearances, he knew the way to Thornliebank “pairfeckly well.”  “Noo, I do beg of ye not to be narrrr-vous.  Do NOT give way to’t.  Ye may trust me entirely.  Don’t be discommodded in the least.  I’m just pairfectly acquainted with the road.  But it’ll be havin’ been there in the winter that’s just misled me.  But we’re aal right.”  And all right he did eventually land me here! so late J. had nearly given me up.

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TO MRS. ELDER.

Greno House, Grenoside, Sheffield. October 26, 1881.

DEAREST AUNT HORATIA,

* * * * *

D. says you would like some of the excellent Scotch stories I heard from Mr. Donald Campbell.  I wish I could take the wings of a swallow and tell you them.  You must supply gaps from your imagination.