my favor; and in the winter play hours, when hard exercise was impossible, my tales used to assemble an admiring audience round Lucky Brown's fireside, and happy was he that could sit next to the inexhaustible narrator. I was also, though often negligent of my own task, always ready to assist my friends, and hence I had a little party of staunch partisans and adherents, stout of hand and heart, though somewhat dull of head - the very tools for raising a hero to eminence. So, on the whole, I made a brighter figure in the yards than in the class.'"

"Did he ever get over his lameness?" asked Lucy.

"No, but it was only as he got well on in life that he felt it seriously, at any rate as a pain. He walked a great deal when he was a boy, in spite of his lameness. My frame,' he says, 'gradually became hardened with my constitution, and being both tall and muscular, I was rather disfigured than disabled by my lameness. This personal disadvantage did not prevent me from taking much exercise on horseback, and making long journeys on foot, in the course of which I often walked from twenty to thirty miles a day. A distinct instance occurs to me. I remember walking with poor James Ramsay, my fellow apprentice, now no more, and two other friends, to breakfast at Prestonpans. We spent the forenoon in visiting the ruins at Seton, and the field of battle at Preston - dined at Prestonpans on tiled haddock very sumptuously drank half a bottle of port each, and returned in the evening. This could not be less than thirty miles, nor do I remember being at all fatigued upon the My principal object in these excursions was the pleasure of seeing romantic scenery, or, what afforded me at least equal pleasure, the places which had been distinguished by remarkable historical events.""

occasion.

"Just our sentiments," said Ned, nudging Nathan with his elbow. "See that you learn to tell about them as well," said Mrs. Bodley, and then she went on: "The delight with which I regarded the former, of course had general approbation; but I often found it difficult to procure sympathy with the interest I felt in the latter. Yet to me the wandering over the field of Bannockburn was the source of more exquisite pleasure than gazing upon the celebrated landscape from the battlements of Stirling Castle. I do not by any means infer that I was dead to the feeling of picturesque scenery; on the contrary few delighted more in its general effect. But I was unable with the eye of a painter to dissect the various parts of the scene, to comprehend how the one bore upon the other, to estimate the effect which various features of the view had in producing its leading and general effect. . . . . After long study and many efforts I was unable to apply the elements of perspective or of shade to the scene before me, and was obliged to relinquish in despair an art which I was most anxious to practice. But show me an old castle or a field of battle, and I was at home at once, filled it with its combatants in their proper costume, and overwhelmed my hearers by the enthusiasm of my description. In crossing Magus Moor, near St. Andrews, the spirit moved me to give a picture of the assassination of the Archbishop of St. Andrews to some fellow travelers with whom I was accidentally associated, and one of them, though well acquainted with the story, protested my narrative had frightened away his night's sleep. I mention this to show the distinction between a sense of the picturesque in action and in scenery. . . . . Meanwhile I endeavored to make amends for my ignorance of drawing by adopt

ing a sort of technical memory respecting the scenes I visited. Wherever I went I cut a piece of a branch from a tree-these constituted what I called my log-book; and I intended to have a set of chessmen out of them, each having reference to the place where it was cut-as the kings from Falkland and Holyrood; the queens from Queen Mary's yew-tree at Crookston; the bishops from abbeys or episcopal palaces; the knights from baronial residences; the rooks from royal fortresses, and the pawns generally from places worthy of historical note. But this whimsical design I never carried into execution.""

"What a capital idea!" said Ned. "Why have not we thought of something of the kind?"

"I've got a seal made out of John Winthrop's pear-tree," said Nathan.

"I've thought of something," said Phippy, suddenly. "But I sha'n't tell. At least I sha'n't tell now," and she shut her lips tightly and sealed them with her hand to make sure. mother," she gurgled through her fingers.

"Go on,

"Phippy will keep her secret till it breaks," said Mrs. Bodley, laughing, and taking up her book again.

"You see how Walter

Scott, without knowing it, was learning all this time to tell stories, for he loved what he saw, and he lived amongst people who told him of what had happened right about him. There is a pretty story which Lockhart, his biographer tells, which will show how industrious he was in after years when he was writing his first famous novel, 'Waverley. Let me see," and she turned the pages, "here it is. Happening to pass through Edinburgh in June, 1814, I dined one day with William Menzies, whose residence was then in George Street, situated very near to, and

at right angles with, North Castle Street. It was It was a party of very young persons, most of them, like Menzies and myself, destined for the Bar of Scotland, all gay and thoughtless, enjoying the first flush of manhood, with little remembrance of the yesterday or care of the morrow. When my companion's worthy father and uncle, after seeing two or three bottles go round, left the juveniles to themselves, the weather being hot, we adjourned to a library which had one large window looking northward. After carousing here for an hour or more, I observed that a shade had come over the aspect of my friend, who happened to be placed immediately opposite to myself, and said something that intimated a fear of his being unwell. "No," said he, "I shall be well enough presently, if you will only let me sit where you are, and take my chair; for there is a confounded hand in sight of me here, which has often bothered me before, and now it won't let me fill my glass with a good will." I rose to change places with him accordingly, and he pointed out to me this hand which, like the writing on Belshazzar's wall, disturbed his hour of hilarity. "Since we sat down," he said, "I have been watching it; it fascinates my eye; it never stops; page after page is finished and thrown on that heap of manuscript, and still it goes on unwearied; and so it will be till candles are brought in, and God knows how long after that. It is the same every night. I can't stand a sight of it when I am not at my books."-"Some stupid, engrossing clerk, probably," exclaimed myself, or some other giddy youth in our society. "No, boys,"

said our host, "I well know what hand it is 't is Walter Scott's."

This was the hand that, in the evenings of three summer weeks, wrote the last two volumes of "Waverley.""

"And here is a picture of Scott at Abbotsford which Washington Irving has given us:

"The noise of my chaise had disturbed the quiet of the establishment. Out sallied the warder of the castle, a black greyhound, and leaping on one of the blocks of stone began a furious barking. This alarm brought out the whole garrison of dogs, all open-mouthed and vociferous. In a little while the lord of the castle himself made his appearance. I knew him at once, by the likenesses that had been published of him. He came limping up the gravel walk, aiding himself by a stout walkingstaff, but moving rapidly and with vigor. By his side jogged along a large iron-gray staghound of most grave demeanor, who took no part in the clamor of the canine rabble, but seemed to consider himself bound, for the dignity of the house, to give me a courteous reception. Before Scott reached the gate, he called out in a hearty tone, welcoming me to Abbotsford, and asking news of Campbell. Arrived at the door of the chaise, he grasped me warmly by the hand: "Come, drive down, drive down to the house," said he; "ye 're just in time for breakfast, and afterwards ye shall see all the wonders of the Abbey."

"I would have excused myself on the plea of having already made my breakfast. "Hut, man," cried he, "a ride in the morning in the keen air of the Scotch hills is warrant enough for a second breakfast." I was accordingly whirled to the portal of the cottage,' for this was before the great hall at Abbotsford had been built, and in a few minutes found myself seated at the breakfast-table. There was no one present but the family, which consisted of Mrs. Scott; her eldest daughter, Sophia, then a fine girl about seventeen; Miss Ann Scott, two or three years younger;

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