A SCOTTISH PAEALLEL 261 



of five children who really behave very well. What puts 

 me most in mind of Helensburgh is the open doors and 

 windows, the universality of fine weather on Sundays, the 

 insects humming through the room, the stray bird, the 

 leaves waving across the windows, and the irresistible 

 attraction I feel to look out on the open valleys with huge 

 mountains all round, the clouds chasing one another across 

 the forest, and sunbeams dancing on the heavy masses of 

 mist that keep floating along some thousand feet below 

 us. The wind sighs the same sigh through the leaves that 

 it used through the Limes at Kow and these rustle in the 

 same note. I see ripe blackberries too and small children 

 gathering them, but don't see the Gare Loch and its boats, 

 or smell the sea-weeds, no nor the tansy and peppermint, 

 nor peat smoke of the new washed mutches and red cloaks 

 and above all, the Eev. Mr. Winchester, though a sober man 

 enough, is far from a powerful preacher, indeed he may be 

 called a powerless one, for you can't hear him three benches 

 off, and his sermons, though better than Mr. Byam's, cannot 

 keep my mind off the new trees and new weeds that grow 

 up to the very doorstep. 



In the same vein he wishes that Miss Henslow had ever 

 been in Scotland so as to realise at a word that this rainy season 

 was just like the climate of Dreepdaily, * except that all the 

 features are infinitely grander, the rains last longer, the mists 

 are thicker, the fogs are more choking and the damp is more 

 provocative of colds.' He gets up at six, but hates it, and 

 equally hates going to bed at nights. 



I have resumed my kitchen plan at Kew, of warming my 

 back at the fire when writing and my feet when reading, 

 during ' the sma' hours, ilka night.' Mr. Hodgson, who is 

 in poor health, often sits up and reads with me, wrapped 

 in a fur Koquelaure ; now he is perusing Darwin's Journal, 

 which I procured for him, and ever and anon he leaves off 

 and battles with me upon some of the dogmas in Lyell's 

 Geology, anent which we pooh-pooh one another's opinions 

 very freely. Then we get to disputing on the course of a 

 river, may be in High Thibet, and fight it out with old 

 Chinese Charts and notes from various bad authorities. As 

 VOL. i s 



