and this is the only point that the fashon set in the king's
feunoral may be follot in Irvine.

Since the burial, we have been to see the play, where the leddies
were all in deep murning; but excepting that some had black gum-

floors on their heads, I saw leetil for admiration--only that
bugles, I can ashure you, are not worn at all this season; and

surely this murning must be a vast detrimint to bizness--for where
there is no verietie, there can be but leetil to do in your line.

But one thing I should not forget, and that is, that in the vera
best houses, after tea and coffee after dinner, a cordial dram is

handed about; but likewise I could observe, that the fruit is not
set on with the cheese, as in our part of the country, but comes,

after the cloth is drawn, with the wine; and no such a thing as a
punch-bowl is to be heard of within the four walls of London.

Howsomever, what I principally notised was, that the tea and coffee
is not made by the lady of the house, but out of the room, and

brought in without sugar or milk, on servors, every one helping
himself, and only plain flimsy loaf and butter is served--no such

thing as shortbread, seed-cake, bun, marmlet, or jeelly to be seen,
which is an okonomical plan, and well worthy of adaptation in

ginteel families with narrow incomes, in Irvine or elsewhere.
But when I tell you what I am now going to say, you will not be

surprizt at the great wealth in London. I paid for a bumbeseen
gown, not a bit better than the one that was made by you that the

sore calamitybefell, and no so fine neither, more than three times
the price; so you see, Miss Nanny, if you were going to pouse your

fortune, you could not do better than pack up your ends and your
awls and come to London. But ye're far better at home--for this is

not a town for any creditable young woman like you, to live in by
herself, and I am wearying to be back, though it's hard to say when

the Doctor will get his counts settlet. I wish you, howsomever, to
mind the patches for the bed-cover that I was going to patch, for a

licht afternoon seam, as the murning for the king will no be so
general with you, and the spring fashons will be coming on to help

my gathering--so no more at present from your friend and well-
wisher, JANET PRINGLE.

CHAPTER VI--PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
On Sunday morning, before going to church, Mr. Micklewham called at

the manse, and said that he wished particularly to speak to Mr.
Snodgrass. Upon being admitted, he found the young helper engaged

at breakfast, with a book lying on his table, very like a volume of
a new novel called Ivanhoe, in its appearance, but of course it must

have been sermons done up in that manner to attract fashionable
readers. As soon, however, as Mr. Snodgrass saw his visitor, he

hastily removed the book, and put it into the table-drawer.
The precentor having taken a seat at the opposite side of the fire,

began somewhat diffidently to mention, that he had received a letter
from the Doctor, that made him at a loss whether or not he ought to

read it to the elders, as usual, after worship, and therefore was
desirous of consulting Mr. Snodgrass on the subject, for it

recorded, among other things, that the Doctor had been at the
playhouse, and Mr. Micklewham was quite sure that Mr. Craig would be

neither to bind nor to hold when he heard that, although the
transgression was certainly mollified by the nature of the

performance. As the clergyman, however, could offer no opinion
until he saw the letter, the precentor took it out of his pocket,

and Mr. Snodgrass found the contents as follows:-
LETTER XVI

The Rev. Z. Pringle, D.D., to Mr. Micklewham, Schoolmaster and
Session-Clerk, Garnock--LONDON.

Dear Sir--You will recollect that, about twenty years ago, there was
a great sound throughout all the West that a playhouse in Glasgow

had been converted into a tabernacle of religion. I remember it was
glad tidings to our ears in the parish of Garnock; and that Mr.

Craig, who had just been ta'en on for an elder that fall, was for
having a thanksgiving-day on the account thereof, holding it to be a

signal manifestation of a new birth in the of-old-godly town of
Glasgow, which had become slack in the way of well-doing, and the

church therein lukewarm, like that of Laodicea. It was then said,
as I well remember, that when the Tabernacle was opened, there had

not been seen, since the Kaimslang wark, such a congregation as was
there assembled, which was a great proof that it's the matter

handled, and not the place, that maketh pure; so that when you and
the elders hear that I have been at the theatre of Drury Lane, in

London, you must not think that I was there to see a carnal stage
play, whether tragical or comical, or that I would so far demean

myself and my cloth, as to be a witness to the chambering and
wantonness of ne'er-du-weel play-actors. No, Mr. Micklewham, what I

went to see was an Oratorio, a most edifying exercise of psalmody
and prayer, under the management of a pious gentleman, of the name

of Sir George Smart, who is, as I am informed, at the greatest pains
to instruct the exhibitioners, they being, for the most part, before

they get into his hands, poor uncultivated creatures, from Italy,
France, and Germany, and other atheistical and popish countries.

They first sung a hymn together very decently, and really with as
much civilised harmony as could be expected from novices; indeed so

well, that I thought them almost as melodious as your own singing
class of the trades lads from Kilwinning. Then there was one Mr.

Braham, a Jewish proselyte, that was set forth to show us a specimen
of his proficiency. In the praying part, what he said was no

objectionable as to the matter; but he drawled in his manner to such
a pitch, that I thought he would have broken out into an even-down

song, as I sometimes think of yourself when you spin out the last
word in reading out the line in a warm summer afternoon. In the

hymn by himself, he did better; he was, however, sometimes like to
lose the tune, but the people gave him great encouragement when he

got back again. Upon the whole, I had no notion that there was any
such Christianity in practice among the Londoners, and I am happy to

tell you, that the house was very well filled, and the congregation
wonderful attentive. No doubt that excellent man, Mr. W-, has a

hand in these public strainings after grace, but he was not there
that night; for I have seen him; and surely at the sight I could not

but say to myself, that it's beyond the compass of the understanding
of man to see what great things Providence worketh with small means,

for Mr. W- is a small creature. When I beheld his diminutive
stature, and thought of what he had achieved for the poor negroes

and others in the house of bondage, I said to myself, that here the
hand of Wisdom is visible, for the load of perishable mortality is

laid lightly on his spirit, by which it is enabled to clap its wings
and crow so crously on the dunghill top of this world; yea even in

the House of Parliament.
I was taken last Thursday morning to breakfast with him his house at

Kensington, by an East India man, who is likewise surely a great
saint. It was a heart-healing meeting of many of the godly, which

he holds weekly in the season; and we had such a warsle of the
spirit among us that the like cannot be told. I was called upon to

pray, and a worthy gentleman said, when I was done, that he never
had met with more apostolic simplicity--indeed, I could see with the

tail of my eye, while I was praying, that the chief saint himself
was listening with a curious pleasant satisfaction.

As for our doings here anent the legacy, things are going forward in
the regular manner; but the expense is terrible, and I have been

obliged to take up money on account; but, as it was freely given by
the agents, I am in hopes all will end well; for, considering that

we are but strangers to them, they would not have assisted us in
this matter had they not been sure of the means of payment in their

own hands.
The people of London are surprising kind to us; we need not, if we

thought proper ourselves, eat a dinner in our own lodgings; but it
would ill become me, at my time of life, and with the character for