438 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



rying a child was a discovery he had made, that it was quite safe, 

 and very good for it. It was all very well so long as he remem- 

 bered what he Avas about ; but more than once this large good-na- 

 tured baby was left all alone to its own devices. Sometimes he 

 would lay her down on the rug in his room and forget she was 

 there ; when, coming into the drawing-room without his plaything, 

 and being interrogated as to where she was, he would remember 

 he had left her lying on the floor ; and bringing her back with a 

 joke, still maintaining he was the best nurse in the world, " but I 

 will take her up-stairs to Sally," and so, according to his new dis- 

 covery, she was carried back unscathed to the nursery. He did 

 not always treat the young lady with this disrespect, for she was 

 very often in his arms when he was preparing his thoughts for the 

 lecture-hour. A pretty tableau it was to se-e them in that littered 

 room, among books and papers — the only bright things in it — and 

 the spareow, too, looking on while he hopped about the table, not 

 quite certain whether he should not affect a little envy at the sight 

 of the new inmate, whose chubby hands were clutching and tearing 

 away at the long hair, which of right belonged to the audacious 

 bird. So he thought, as he chirped in concert with the baby's 

 screams of delight, and dared at last to alight upon the shoulder 

 of the unconscious Professor, absorbed in the volume he held in his 

 hand. 



Such were the little scenes that recall "the grandfather" to 

 me ; and I hope I have not wearied my readers by this detail about 

 babies and children, but that I may have added, by common facts, 

 a tenderer association to his name, claiming from those who only 

 knew his intellect respect for the loving sympathies that made home 

 so sweet. 



I have now come to the year 1850, when my father was living 

 alone in his house in Gloucester Place, leaving it occasionally to 

 visit his son John at Billholm, as two letters bearing the date of 

 that year show. They are both addressed to his second son, 

 Blair, and are written in his usual kind and home-loving spirit. 

 One of them announces the death of his faithful old servant, Billy 

 Balmer : — 



"Lixmount, lith August, 1850. 



" My dear Blair : — Poor Billy died here yesterday night about 

 nine o'clock, so quietly, that we scarcely knew when he was gone. 



