88 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



by which you are bound. The blockheads are a pre- 

 ponderating majority in both sexes : but somehow in 

 ours the clever fellows contrive to take the lead and 

 make the laws, whereas I suspect that in yours the 

 more numerous party are tenacious of their privileges as 

 such, and legislate both for themselves and the minority/ 



In the letter from Miss Eraser, to which our next 

 from Miller is a reply, there occurred several descriptive 

 sketches of the scenery amid w r hich she was at the time, 

 and an allusion to the Rev. Mr Eraser of Kirkhill, who 

 had just lost his life by a fall from his gig. The passage 

 in which Hugh refers to the early writings of David 

 Urquhart and the threatening ambition of Russia is 

 curious when viewed in connection with the issue of 

 Russian scheming in the Crimean war. 



' I am thinking long for you, dearest, and for the last 

 week have been counting the days, counting them in 

 the style of the fool whom Jacques met in the forest. 

 " To-day is the 19th, the 20th comes to-morrow, and the 

 32nd will be here the day after; " they will creep away 

 one by one, and Lydia will be with me ere they bring 

 the month to an end. My heart is full of you ; full of 

 you every hour, and every minute, and all day long. I 

 walked last Saturday on the hill and saw our beech tree, 

 but lacked heart to go down to it ; I thought it looked 

 dreary and deserted, and I felt that, were I to lose you, 

 it would, be, of all places in the world, the place I could 

 least bear to see. Your grave but how can I speak of 

 it ! would be a place devoted to sorrow, but to a sorrow 

 not sublimed into agony. I could clasp the green turf 

 to my bosom, and make my bed upon it, but our beauti- 

 ful beech tree with its foliage impervious to the sun, and 

 its deep cool recess in which we have so often sat under 

 the cover of one plaid, I could not visit it, Lydia, un- 



