AN INTERCEPTED LETTER. 170 



day's disappointment — generally the latter. The outside 

 atmosphere is more than ever like that of a washing-day, 

 where there are fourteen children and all "done" at 

 home. Volumes of mist have rolled up the valley and 

 completely blotted out the last vestige of the loch. It is 

 growing dusk, too — the "gloaming," as I suppose they 

 call it here — it sounds nice and poetic, you know, but 

 " Where the gloaming is I never made the ghost of an 



endeavour to discover " still, the reality, in a Scotch 



inn on a wet day, is the reverse of poetic, and I feel that 

 Mariana's life in the Moated Grange was a vortex of 

 dissipation compared with mine. , 



I take a book and sit down in the one arm-chair that 

 the room contains. It has seen better days, for its internal 

 arrangements are dyspeptic and out of order, and it feels 

 as if it were stuffed with doubled-up pokers and old steel 

 forks, instead of springs. I think sadly of my comfortable 

 chair at home, and wonder when its arms will embrace 

 me again. 



To crown all, the room is filled with a pungent odour 

 of wood and peat, for the fire wi// smoke ! I dare not 

 poke it to try to improve its constitution, for the front of 

 the grate is so weak that it has to be propped up on one 

 side with a piece of iron, and on the other by a Colman's 

 Patent Mustard tin. The least shake to the structure 

 would bring down peat, coals, mustard tin, and bars 

 amongst the poker and tongs, in hopeless confusion. So, 

 with the calmness of despair, I watch the smoke curling 

 slowly out through every available crack and cranny in 

 mantel-piece and fireplace, and reflect that the smuts 



