112 . THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



pieces for the Journal. ' I am leading, 5 he says, ' a quiet 

 and very happy life in this remote corner, with perhaps 

 a little less time than I know what to do with, but by 

 no means overtoiled. A good wife is a mighty addition 

 to a man's happiness ; and mine, whom I have been court- 

 ing for about six years, and am still as much in love with 

 as ever, is one of the best. My mornings I devote to 

 composition ; my days and the early part of the evening 

 I spend in the*bank; at night I have again an hour or 

 two to myself ; my Saturday afternoons are given to plea- 

 sure, some sea excursion, for I have got a little boat of 

 my own, or some jaunt of observation among the rocks 

 and woods ; and Sunday as a day of rest closes the round. 



' Your collection of ballads I have found to be quite a 

 treasure, excellent in itself as a most amusing volume, 

 and highly interesting, regarded as the people's literature 

 of the ages that have gone by. Barbour's Bruce and 

 Blind Harry's Wallace belong, also, to the same library, 

 and must in their day have exerted no unimportant in- 

 fluence on the character of our great-grandfathers. You 

 yourself now occupy the place in relation to the people 

 which the metrical historians and the authors of the 

 ballads did a few centuries ago/ 



To this there came a reply warmed by that true- 

 hearted kindness with which Miller's correspondent has 

 cheered so many of the youthful soldiers of literature. 

 ' The account you give me of your domestic condition is 

 necessarily gratifying to one who feels as your friend and 

 is anxious to be regarded in the same light by yourself. 

 Your present circumstances are most creditable to you, 

 and show that your intellect has its true and proper 

 crown, moral worth. May you ever be thus happy, as 

 you deserve to be ! I have sometimes thought of more 

 prominent and brilliant situations for you ; but after all, 



