AT THE SANK DESK. 15 



your experience in this way must have been among your 

 pupils, that is saying something. For the first day or 

 two I felt miserably depressed and sadly out of conceit 

 with myself. I do not know what I would not have 

 given to have had you beside me to speak me comfort, 

 but I dare say you would have begun by laughing at me. 

 My lodgings here are much too fine and too expensive, 

 but they were taken for me by Mr Paterson at the re- 

 quest of Mr Paul, who intimated my coming by letter, 

 and so I could on no account decline them. I dislike 

 expense even for its own sake, and independent of the 

 embarrassment which it always occasions, especially 

 when 'tis incurred for a man's self, for food a little 

 more delicate, and clothes a little finer than ordinary. 

 My disposition, too as the Edinburgh phrenologists 

 will, I dare say, find leads me rather to acquire than 



to dissipate Remember, I expect a reply. You 



little know the exquisite pleasure which I derive from 

 your letters.' 



A letter from Miss Eraser arrives in due course, but 

 it is with a feeling very different from pleasure that he 

 peruses it. She has been suffering from illness, and 

 her nervous excitement has been . such, that ' this morn- 

 ing,' she writes, ' when your letter was delivered to me, 

 I was almost fixed in the belief that I was suffering 

 under a temporary derangement. God alone knows 

 where I would have been to-day without it ; it turned, in 

 part, the current of my ideas.' Hugh writes, evidently 

 without loss of time, though the letter has no date, and 

 in the' greatest agitation. His first sentence appears to 

 intimate that he had a presentiment of evil so soon as 

 his eye fell upon the letter. ' 'Twas no wonder, my own 

 dearest girl, that I should have felt so unwilling to open 

 your letter, and that I looked twice at the seal to con- 



