There was another death in 1812; it passes almost unremarked; a single funeral seemed but a small event to these ’veterans in affliction’; and by 1816 the nursery was full again.  Seven little hopefuls enlivened the house; some were growing up; to the elder girl my grandfather already wrote notes in current hand at the tail of his letters to his wife:  and to the elder boys he had begun to print, with laborious care, sheets of childish gossip and pedantic applications.  Here, for instance, under date of 26th May 1816, is part of a mythological account of London, with a moral for the three gentlemen, ‘Messieurs Alan, Robert, and James Stevenson,’ to whom the document is addressed: 

’There are many prisons here like Bridewell, for, like other large towns, there are many bad men here as well as many good men.  The natives of London are in general not so tall and strong as the people of Edinburgh, because they have not so much pure air, and instead of taking porridge they eat cakes made with sugar and plums.  Here you have thousands of carts to draw timber, thousands of coaches to take you to all parts of the town, and thousands of boats to sail on the river Thames.  But you must have money to pay, otherwise you can get nothing.  Now the way to get money is, become clever men and men of education, by being good scholars.’

From the same absence, he writes to his wife on a Sunday: 

’It is now about eight o’clock with me, and I imagine you to be busy with the young folks, hearing the questions [Anglice, catechism], and indulging the boys with a chapter from the large Bible, with their interrogations and your answers in the soundest doctrine.  I hope James is getting his verse as usual, and that Mary is not forgetting her little hymn.  While Jeannie will be reading Wotherspoon, or some other suitable and instructive book, I presume our friend, Aunt Mary, will have just arrived with the news of A throng Kirk [a crowded church] and a great sermon.  You may mention, with my compliments to my mother, that I was at St. Paul’s to-day, and attended a very excellent service with Mr. James Lawrie.  The text was “Examine and see that ye be in the faith."’

A twinkle of humour lights up this evocation of the distant scene—­ the humour of happy men and happy homes.  Yet it is penned upon the threshold of fresh sorrow.  James and Mary—­he of the verse and she of the hymn—­did not much more than survive to welcome their returning father.  On the 25th, one of the godly women writes to Janet: 

’My dearest beloved madam, when I last parted from you, you was so affected with your affliction [you? or I?] could think of nothing else.  But on Saturday, when I went to inquire after your health, how was I startled to hear that dear James was gone!  Ah, what is this?  My dear benefactors, doing so much good to many, to the Lord, suddenly to be deprived of their most valued comforts!  I was