xii.] LIFE IN ST. ANDREWS. 409 



4,000 from the University chest should not be forth- 

 coming, it is not to be expected that the terminable 

 annuity insufficient as it would then be- can be pro- 

 ceeded with, and that the scheme which I have been 

 now for twelve months promoting, and which had been 

 adjusted apparently to the satisfaction of the parties 

 more immediately concerned, must fall to the ground, 

 to the infinite discouragement of all who had part in 

 it, and who felt perhaps that they were at some small 

 personal sacrifice lending their aid to effect a public 

 benefit. 



' It will be proportionably still more painful and dis- 

 i tening to me, should I have to announce to my col- 

 leagues, who have reposed so much confidence in me al- 

 ready, that the hopes of adjustment which I held out as 

 the result of their proposed relinquishment of a proportion 

 of their annual profits are at an end, and that the debt is 

 immediately to be increased to a larger amount than it 

 'ver stood at since the foundation of the College/ 



To A. WILLS, ESQ. 



'NEAB CRIEFP, N.B., Septmltr 1861. 



' ... I am very glad that the " Eagle's Nest " has so 

 completely answered to all your hopes and expectations. 

 The picture which you draw of your complete enjoyment 

 there, presents itself somewhat in contrast to the more 

 prosaic and less Elysian character of my own summer 

 rience. We have had a summer and autumn of 

 unusually broken weather. Since the middle of July 

 we can count but few days without rain, and none of 

 genial warmth. Our plans for residence and occupation 

 nave been very much upset. Proposing to return to St. 

 Andrews early in August, we let our cottage at Pitlochrie 

 for three months. But scarlet fever and small-pox having 

 become somewhat rife at St. Andrews, we did not like to 

 return thither with our children, and after an anxious 

 search we secured lodgings in a farmhouse near Crieff, 

 where we still are : but other < -in -u instances as well as 

 ther have rendered our stay less pleasant than we 



