8 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



two o'clock, just in time to escape a tremendous storm 

 of wind and rain from the south-west, which, had it 

 caught us in the Frith, would have driven us back to 

 Peterhead. I have taken lodgings at No. 14, Romilly 

 Place, to which you must address for me. Do write me 

 a very long letter, longer than mine by a great deal. 

 You may see, from my first and second page, that I was 

 within a hair's-breadth of being unable to write at all. 

 Had I been pledged to write any one else, I would have 

 pleaded incapacity, and firmly believed the plea a good 

 one, but the thought of you nerved me when half-dead, 

 and the words came. I love you ten times better when 

 separated from you by about 200 miles than when I 

 could draw in my chair beside you ; or, I dare say, it 

 would have been more correct to say, my affection is 

 just what it was, but I have now semething to measure 

 it by. Do you not think me a silly fellow? There 

 is something inspiriting in the air of Edinburgh ; I feel 

 myself an inch taller as I walk the streets. But I am 

 afraid I shall have something else to tell you when I 

 write again. I shall ere then be set down to my desk, 

 the least skilful and least confident of all clerks; and 

 you shall hear of little else than blunders and incapacity, 

 and of how ill-suited I am for the part I have to per- 

 form. Well, however dispirited I may be, I am sure 

 no man was ever born an accountant, and that the 

 practice and perseverance which do so much for others, 

 cannot fail doing a little for me. I see many changes 

 in Edinburgh. There are large open spaces, which were 

 occupied, ten years ago, by lofty masses of building; 

 and masses of building where there were then only open 

 spaces. Some of the new statues I don't at all admire. 

 I find few traces in them of the hand of the master. 

 They seem as if finished by the journeymen of genius, 



