22 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



ing Edinburgh for Dumfries, his desk was found stuffed 

 full of literary scraps, unfinished stanzas, and broken 

 sentences. I must try to avoid being made the subject 

 of a similar story, by keeping my literature at home. 



This is the country of historical associations and his- 

 torical relics. I described to you in my last the watch 

 of Queen Mary. I have since seen two pieces of her 

 needle-work. They are at present in the possession of 

 my landlady, who was for many years housekeeper to a 

 lady of quality, whose name I forget, and who at her 

 death left her her wardrobe the relics of Mary included. 

 The one is an apron, the other a tippet, both of muslin, 

 which was once white, but which now, both in colour 

 and in fragility, resembles a spider's web. The apron is 

 a complex piece of work nearly as much so as the bor- 

 ders on which I have so often seen you engaged ; the 

 tippet is simpler. You will laugh at me when I tell 

 you that, all unpractised in the art as I am, I am em- 

 ployed in making a pattern of it for you, that you may 

 see how muslin was flowered in the sixteenth century, 

 and bedeck yourself, should you deem it worth your 

 imitation, in the same style of ornament with the beau- 

 tiful Mary. I need not tell you I am no critic in such 

 matters ; it strikes me, however, that the flowering of 

 both pieces has a grotesque Gothic air, and differs as 

 much from the needle-work of the present day, as the 

 old castle of the sixteenth century does from the modern 

 mansion-house. In the possession of such persons as 

 my landlady one frequently meets with interesting relics 

 on the last stage of their journey to oblivion. The work 

 table on which I write is only about twenty inches 

 square a-top ; yet I am certain that top must have em- 

 ployed some skilful mechanic of a century ago for a full 

 month. It is curiously inlaid with more than four 



