where we had an excellent place, near to the Glasgow manufacturer that drank the champaign. The drink by this time, however, had got into that poor's man's head, and he talked so loud, and so little to the purpose, that the soldiers who were guarding were obliged to make him hold his peace, at which he was not a little nettled, and told the soldiers that he had himself been a soldier, and served the king without pay, having been a volunteer officer. But this had no more effect than to make the soldiers laugh at him, which was not a decent thing at the interment of their master, our most gracious sovereign that was.

However, in this situation we saw all; and I can assure you it was a very edifying sight; and the people demeaned themselves with so much propriety that there was no need for any guards at all; indeed, for that matter, of the two, the guards who had eaten the king's bread, were the only ones there, saving and excepting the Glasgow manufacturer, that manifested an irreverent spirit towards the royal obsequies. But they are men familiar with the king of terrors on the field of battle, and it was not to be expected that their hearts would be daunted like those of others by a doing of a civil character.

When all was over, we returned to the inns, to get our chaise, to go back to London that night, for beds were not to be had for love or money at Windsor, and we reached our temporary home in Norfolk street about four o'clock in the morning, well satisfied with what we had seen,-but all the mean time I had forgotten the loss of the flap of my coat, which caused no little sport when I came to recollect what a pookit like body I must have been, walking about in the king's policy like a peacock without my tail. But I must conclude, for Mrs. Pringle has a letter to put in the frank, for Miss Nanny Eydent, which you will send to her by one of your scholars, as it contains information that may be serviceable to Miss Nanny in her business, both as a mantua maker, and superintendant of the genteeler sort of burials at Irvine and our vicinity. So that this is all from your friend and pastor,

ZACHARIAH PRINGLE.

"I think," said Miss Isabella Todd, as Mr. Micklewam finished the reading of the doctor's epistle," that my friend Rachel might have given me some account of the ceremony, but Capt. Sabre

seems to have been a much more interesting object to her than all the pride and pomp that so bewildered her brother, or even the Glasgow manufacturer to her father." In saying these words, the young lady took the following letter from her pocket, and was on the point of beginning to read it, when Miss Becky Glibbans exclaimed: "I had ay my fears that Rachel was but light headed, and I'll no be surprised to hear more about her and the dragoon or a's done." Mr. Snodgrass looked at Becky, as if he had been afflicted at the moment with unpleasant ideas, and perhaps he would have rebuked the spitefulness of her insinuations, had not her mother sharply snubbed the uncongenial maiden, in terms at least as pungent as any which the reverend gentleman would have employed. "I'm sure," replied Miss Becky, pertly, "I meant no ill, but if Rachel Pringle can write about nothing but this captain Sabre, she might as well let it alone, and her letter canna be worth the hearing." "Upon that," said the clergyman, " we can form a judgment when we have heard it, and I beg that Miss Isabella may proceed," which she did accordingly.

Miss Rachel Pringle to Miss Isabella Todd.

MY DEAR BELL,

London.

I take up my pen with a feeling of disappointment such as I never felt before. Yesterday was the day appointed for the funeral of the good old king, and it was agreed that we should go to Windsor, to pour the tribute of our tears upon the royal bier,captain Sabre promised to go with us, as he is well acquainted with the town, and the interesting objects around the castle, so dear to chivalry, and embalmed by the genius of Shakspeare, and many a minor bard, and I promised myself a day of unclouded felicitybut the captain was ordered to be on duty,—and the crowd was so rude and riotous, that I had no enjoyment whatever, but pining with chagrin at the little respect paid by the rabble to the virtues of departed monarchy. I would fainly have retired into some solemn and sequestered grove, and breathed my sorrows to the listening waste. Nor was the loss of the captain, to explain and illuminate the different baronial circumstances around the castle, the only thing that I had to regret in this ever-memorable excur

sion-my tender and affectionate mother was so desirous to see every thing in the most particular manner, in order that she might give an account of the funeral to Nanny Eydent, that she had no mercy either upon me or my father, but obliged us to go with her to the most difficult and inaccessible places. How vain was all this meritorious assiduity, for of what avail can the ceremonies of a royal funeral te to Miss Nanny, at Irvine, where kings never die, and where, if they did, it is not at all probable that Miss Nanny would be employed to direct their solemn obsequies. As for my brother, he was so entranced with his own enthusiasm, that he paid but little attention to us, which made me the more sensible of the want we suffered from the absence of captain Sabre. In a word, my dear Bell, never did I pass a more unsatisfactory day, and I wish it blotted for ever from my remembrance. Let it therefore be consigned to the abysses of oblivion, while I recall the more pleasing incidents that have happened since I wrote you last.

On Sunday according to invitation, as I told you, we dined with the Argents-and were entertained by them in a style at once most splendid, and on the most easy footing. I shall not attempt to describe the consumeable materials of the table, but call your attention, my dear friend, to the intellectual portion of the entertainment, a subject much more congenial to your delicate and refined character.

Mrs. Argent is a lady of considerable personal magnitude, of an open and affable disposition; in this respect, indeed, she bears a striking resemblance to her nephew, captain Sabre, with whose relationship to her we were unacquainted before that day. She received us as friends in whom she felt a peculiar interest, for when she heard that my mother had got her dress and mine from Cranburn Alley, she expressed the greatest astonishment, and told us, that it was not at all a place where persons of fashion could expect to be properly served. Nor can I disguise the fact, that the flounced and gorgeous garniture of our dresses was in shocking contrast to the amiable simplicity of her's and the fair Arabella, her daughter, a charming girl, who notwithstanding the fashionable splendour in which she has been educated, displays a delightful sprightliness of manner, that, I have some notion, has not been altogether lost on the heart of my brother.

When we returned up stairs to the drawing room, after dinner, Miss Arabella took her harp, and was on the point of favouring us with a Mozart; but her mother, recollecting that we were Presbyterians, thought it might not be agreeable, and she desisted-which I was sinful enough to regret; but my mother was so evidently alarmed at the idea of playing on the harp on a Sunday night, that I suppressed my own wishes, in filial veneration for those of that respected parent. Indeed, fortunate it was that the music was not performed, for, when we returned home, my father remarked with great solemnity, that such a way of passing the lord's night as we had passed it, would have been a great sin in Scotland.

Captain Sabre, who called on us next morning, was so delighted when he understood that we were acquainted with his aunt; that he lamented he had not happened to know it before, as he would, in that case, have met us there. He is, indeed, very attentive, but I assure you, that I feel no particular interest about him, for although he is certainly a very handsome young man, he is not such a genius as my brother, and has no literary partialities. But literary accomplishments are, you know, foreign to the military profession, and if the captain has not distinguished himself by cutting up authors in the reviews, he has acquired an honourable medal, by overcoming the enemies of the civilized world at Waterloo.

To-night the play-houses open again, and we are going to the Oratorio, and the captain goes with us, a circumstance which I am the more pleased at, as we are strangers, and he will tell us the names of the performers. My father made some scruple of consenting to be of the party, but when he heard that an Oratorio was a concert of sacred music, he thought it would be only a sinless deviation if he did, so he goes likewise. The captain, therefore, takes an early dinner with us at five o'clock.-Alas! to what changes am I doomed,-that was the tea hour at the manse, of Garnock. O when shall I revisit the primitive simplicities of my native scenes again. But time nor distance, my dear Bell, cannot change the affection with which I subscribe myself, ever affectionately, yours,

RACHEL PRINGLE.

At the conclusion of this letter, the countenance of Mrs. Glibbans was evidently so darkened, that it daunted the company like an eclipse of the sun, under which all nature is saddened. “What think you, Mr. Snodgrass," said that spirit-stricken lady, "what think you of this dining on the Lord's day,-this playing on the harp; the carnal Mozarting of that ungodly family, with whom the corrupt human nature of our friends has been chambering." Mr. Snodgrass was at some loss for an answer, and hesitated, but Miss Mally Glencairn relieved him from his embarrassment, by remarking, that "the harp was a holy instrument," which somewhat troubled the settled orthodoxy of Mrs. Glibbans' visage. «Had it been an organ," said Mr. Snodgrass, dryly, "there might have been, perhaps, more reason to doubt; but, as Miss Mally justly remarks, the harp has been used from the days of king David in the performances of sacred music, together with the psalter, the timbrel, the sackbut, and the cymbal." The wrath of the polemical Deborah of the Relief-kirk was somewhat appeased by this explanation, and she inquired in a more diffident tone, "whether a Mozart was not a metrical paraphrase of the song of Moses after the overthrow of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, in which case, I must own," she observed, "that the sin and guilt of the thing is less grievous in the sight of Him before whom all the actions of men are abominations." Miss Isabella Todd, availing herself of this break in the conversation, turned round to Miss Nanny Eydent, and begged that she would read her letter from Mrs. Pringle. We should do injustice, however, to honest worth and patient industry, were we, in thus introducing Miss Nanny to our readers, not to give them some account of her lowly and virtuous character.

Miss Nanny was the eldest of three sisters, the daughters of a shipmaster, who was lost at sea when they were very young; and his all having perished with him, they were indeed, as their mother said, the children of poverty and sorrow. By the help of a little credit, the widow contrived, in a small shop, to eke out her days till Nanny was able to assist her. It was the intention of the poor woman to take up a girl's school for reading and knitting, and Nanny was destined to instruct the pupils in that higher branch of accomplishment-the different stitches of the sampler. But about the time that Nanny was advancing to the requisite de