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the washing herself, and thus make the weekly bills less by ten or twelve shillings; this will amount to something at the year's end. She consults the old gardener. At first, he says he thinks that Dr. Oliver would be vexed to see clothes hanging in the garden; but through inquiry, he finds that they may be hung in the adjacent field; thus the difficulty is at an end. So from week to week she undertakes this new labour; and Dr. Oliver is soon struck by the snowy whiteness of his linen, and supposes his excellent maid has found out a new laundress. At length he notices the absence of washing bills from the weekly accounts, and, wondering, questions her. She then reluctantly confesses that none occur that she does the work herself.

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She names both time and sum, and her master's only answer is, "Very well."

The months pass by, and master and servant seem to have become necessary to each other. The household duties proceed as methodically as clockwork. Toby grows sleek, and has more than one companion; and when the winter evenings come, there burns a cheerful fire in Honor's pleasant parlour, beside which she sits reading or at needlework-for she attends well to everything belonging to her master. One evening, when the winter has fully set in, her master stays at his club to dine; so when she has had tea, Honor sits down to sew. Whilst she sits, she recollects some unperformed errand; so putting on her shawl and bonnet, she sees to the study fire, and then goes out. A trifling accident detains her, and in the meanwhile her master, accompanied by Mr. Minehead, returns. He finds the fire bright -the lamp ready-his slippers and study gown warming on a chair: but presently, needing some wine, he rings the bell. It is not answered. Growing alarmed-for Honor

is rarely absent at that hour-Dr. Oliver goes down stairs, and in a few minutes returns.

"Honor is more excellent than I supposed. Come down stairs for an instantthe sight is an astonishing one."

So both gentlemen go down, and see Honor's spotless kitchen and glowing firethe light dancing on the glittering tins and coppers, and lying on spotless dressers, and on the orderly array of china plates and dishes. Proceeding thence into her parlour, they are amazed at what she has effected. She has papered and painted it with her own hand, and covered the couch with some green moreen she found upstairs, and made curtains of the same. She has likewise found a carpet; and on the round table by the fire is her work-basket, her books and newspapers, and a little orderly pile of new knit socks, which she is marking with a conspicuous "J. O.”

"These, I suppose, are for you, doctor,” says Mr. Minehead, with a smile.

66

Perhaps so," says the doctor, briefly,for he is at this moment examining an oldfashioned sampler lying on the table, by which Honor seems to have been marking the socks. Then he adds presently: "I am glad I know her birthday, for I did not like to ask her. Yet I wished to send her a gown on that day, as a grateful master's return to a good servant.”

"Do so, doctor," says Mr. Minehead, "and I will add something. Such services should be marked by appreciation."

Both gentlemen retreat, and it is not till some time after, that Honor learns that her master has seen the kitchen.

About a month after this event, and whilst her master is out of town for a few days, there arrives a large brown paper parcel, directed to "Honor Freeland." Opening it, she is astonished to find within, a handsome silk, of plain hue, for a dress, and an excellent Paisley shawl. To the first is attached a little paper, on which is written, "From Dr. Oliver to his good servant" the shawl is marked as the gift of Mr. Minehead. This is the grandest present she has ever had; and, full of gratitude for these recompensing thoughts of those around her, it is a rich treat to her to think of recompensing duty in return, as well of the rich joy of those in that old Warwickshire home, when she visits them, wears this brave apparel, and tells them of her noble

master.

When Dr. Oliver returns, and she thanks him gratefully and modestly, he bids her say no more, as his debts to her are many, and he must pay some.

One day, when the winter has waned into the richest spring, and Dr. Oliver has gone on a visit to Oxford, Mr. Minehead calls, in his carriage, accompanied by a little girl of about seven years old. He expected to find the Doctor at home, he says; and when Honor explains that the latter was called away unexpectedly, Mr. Minehead adds, that he will, then, leave his little daughter with her till the evening, as that will partially console her for not seeing her grandpapa, and amuse her whilst he transacts business at some public offices. where she could not go.

So taking Honor's hand very willingly, the little child goes in with her.

"Will you sit in the parlour, miss, or run about the garden?" asks Dr. Oliver's maid.

66 'May I go with you? I shall like that best," is the answer.

"Oh, if you please, miss, you can sit in my little parlour, and I will cook you some dinner; make you a sweet pudding; you will like it, I daresay.”

She says she shall. Then she tells Honor that her name is Bella Minehead, and that her grandpapa is Dr. Oliver.

"I heard that before, and was very surprised," replies Honor, "for I did not think that dear master had ever been married. But you ought to be a very happy little girl, Miss Bella, for your papa and grandpapa are both so kind."

"No I am not a happy little girl," answers Bella; and as she says this, with great gravity, she bends her pretty face down towards sleek old Toby, that purrs softly in her lap.

"Why, dear?" And Honor coming towards the child, kneels, and puts her arms about her.

This tenderness touches the child's heart, and she looks up into Honor's face.

"I am unhappy because my mamma went away, and will never come again."

This, then, is the secret Dr. Oliver hidesthe sorrow that preys upon his heart from day to day. Yes, she knows it now!

She does not like to question the child, but Bella, liking the honest face which looks in hers, goes on.

"People tell me that mamma is wicked,

and that I mustn't talk of her; but I can't think her wicked, because she was so very good to me. Sometimes I think it was naughty of her to leave me and papa quite alone. But I can never think my beautiful mamma wicked."

"Quite right, my darling," replies Honor, greatly touched; "whatever may be a mother's sins, it is not for her child to number and bear them in remembrance. Pity, is indeed a needful thing, for we all, more or less, are led into temptation."

"There!" exclaims Bella, as she winds her arms about the good maid, "I will always like you, because you tell me to pity my mamma. Papa said I should like you, and that you are very good; that you are very kind to grandpapa, and keep his house as nice as a doll's house. Please may I see the house, Honor? I have never seen it since I was here with my mamma."

"Yes! darling, only you must first have some dinner, for it is just noon."

Whilst she sits at dinner, Bella tells Honor all about the country town in Somersetshire where her papa lives, of the nice house they inhabit, and many other things. Added to this, Honor indirectly hears that it is two years since the child's mother went away.

When the afternoon comes, and Honor has on her nice gown and cap, she and her master's little granddaughter go over the house together: Bella admires everything, till at last coming into Dr. Oliver's chamber she is sad again. Looking up at the fireplace, she sees the covered picture, and bursts into a paroxysm of tears.

"Please take me away, Honor, that is my mamma's picture. I can't even see thatOh, I shall never, never, see her again!"

But by and bye Bella's tears are dried, and she and Honor spend a very happy time together.

When her papa comes for her, the child's first thought is to rush into his arms, and tell him about Honor, and to ask if she may come again to see her.

"Certainly, my darling! I thought you would like your grandpapa's new maid."

When Dr. Oliver returns, and Honor tells him what visitors have been, he seems somewhat concerned to hear that Bella came with her papa, and stayed some hours. At the moment he says nothing; but before he retires to rest, he rings for his servant.

"Be so good, Honor, as to keep to your

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"I believe you, Honor. I believe that sincerity is added to your other excellences. Good night."

As spring broadens into summer, a learned physician, who occasionally visits Dr. Oliver, comes there to chat and spend the evening. When the friends have finished their wine, they go up into the drawing-room to tea. This Honor brings in with her habitual staid demeanour. As she places the things with accustomed nicety about the table, the physician keenly observes her. When she is gone, he is silent for some minutes, and then says

"Yours is certainly an incomparable servant, Oliver, but it is a treasure you must be careful of. She has a frail slight body, and is prematurely decayed. She will eventually die of consumption, though years may intervene; she has been overworked, and if I read signs rightly, she has had some great shock to the nervous system, from which she has never recovered."

"Dear me dear me," says Dr. Oliver, with an emotion he cannot conceal, "what can be done? I cannot part with Honor, she is the best and truest of creatures. What can be done?"

"Well, much. You must let her have country air each summer, and no overwork For her fine moral character

when at home.

I would answer. Her skull is fine; I look at it, and would trust her with the deepest secret, or the richest gold; both would be safe. So let her have country air."

"She shall. I think of joining Minehead and Bella to the Lakes, and she shall go with

us.

66 'Better, still, if she could rest in some old country home. Has she none?"

"Yes. She shall go there, then; it is in the most picturesque part of Warwickshire, amidst old russet woods, and silvery trout streams, that make it a paradise."

"By all means let her go." Without loss of time, Dr. Oliver matures his plans, and tells Honor of them.

"I am sure it is very good of you, master; I shall enjoy seeing my old parents more than I can tell. Things have grown better with them of late, and when they wrote, they wished me to go."

66 Why not tell me, Honor?"

"I did not like, sir. My first duty is to you." "Well, you shall go, Honor. We'll send the plate to the bankers, lock up the best rooms, and leave Maltby keeper of the rest."

So preparations are made-Dr. Oliver setting out one day before his servant, who is to return a week before him. Before he goes, he will give her money for her going up and down, and £5 for board wages whilst away. She would fain not accept it, but he

is peremptory.

So she packs up her renovated wardrobenice presents for her friends-and sets forth. This without warning to those she goes to

see.

It is a Saturday evening when she reaches the country station to which she has been bound. Leaving her trunk there, she takes her basket and bonnet-box, and sets out to walk the rest of the way, a distance of some three miles. A road winding amidst woods and meadows, brings her at length to an upland height, from which a lane descends, to the picturesque village where she was born and reared.

Here sitting down to rest upon a mossied stone, she can see the distant brook wind silvering on its way; her cottage home amidst the fields; the mill-wheel dripping golden drops in the fading splendour of the (To be continued.)

sun.

A VISIT TO THE GRANITE CITY.

IN the aggregate we have sojourned-at different periods-several years in the east and west of auld Scotia; but until recently, the north was to us a veritable terra incognita. At the close of 1854 we therefore

gladly availed ourself of an opportunity to visit the famed "Granite City," as Aberdeen has quaintly but truthfully been designated. On the morning of December 30th, the railway train quickly whirled us from the heart

The

of Edinburgh down to the shore of the Firth* of Forth, the terminus being on Granton Pier, the property of the Duke of Buccleugh, and one of the most magnificent works of the kind in the kingdom. Here a steamboat was ready to receive passengers bound for the North, and we were speedily crossing the Firth to Burntisland- -a thriving little town on the opposite Fifeshire coast. Firth is here about seven miles in width, and on this occasion the passage proved more stormy than pleasant-few of the passengers on deck escaping a drenching of very cold salt-water, and the steamer occupying twice or thrice her usual time in passing from shore to shore. From Burntisland we proceeded on our journey per rail, skirting the shores of the beautiful and noble Firth until we had passed the "lang toun o' Kirkaldy”—and a prodigiously long town it truly is; apparently consisting of one main street, which undulates along the shore like an enormous serpent, and a few short and narrow offshoots, although a place of considerable importance, and the largest of the numerous towns that stud the coast of the "ancient kingdom of Fife," its population being upwards of 15,000. Adam Smith, the great philosophic author of "Wealth of Nations," was a native of this queer "auld lang toun." Diverging inland from hence, the railroad crosses a large, and not very interesting, tract of country, until it reaches the south shore of the Firth of Tay, which it skirts until it reaches the "Fair City of Perth," long and fondly so called. On our return from Aberdeen we had an opportunity of surveying this fine old city—the most ancient in Scotland-and much as we had heard of its picturesque beauty, the reality far exceeded our anticipations. Perth is indeed а "fair" city, even in winter, and in the spring or summer season it must be one of the most beautiful and romantic places in the kingdom. The river Tay appears to be two or three hundred yards in width where the bridge spans its swiftly rushing current (which narrows below the town), and it is an exceedingly noble tidal river. Vessels of about 300 tons' burthen can come up to the town, although the shipping trade is small-not half-a-dozen vessels lying at the

*We may remind our English readers that the Scottish word Firth means an arm of the sea. In Scandinavia such estuaries are called Fjords, or Fiords, a word evidently of the same derivation as Firth.

quays at the time of our visit. Several places and scenes of historic interest-especially the palace of Scone-are in the vicinity of Perth; but we cannot linger to survey them, for the warning railway bell rings for us to resume our flight northward.

Of the country itself through which the train passes, we may say that from Perth to Aberdeen a distance of nearly ninety miles -it is both varied and interesting. After leaving Perth, we pass for some miles through a luxuriant tract of country, diversified with castles, mansions, villages, rocky hills, and clusters of firs. About twenty-seven miles from Perth we pause at a little station called Glammis (pronounced Glams by the people of the locality), near to which is Glammis Castle, an edifice of exceeding antiquity and commanding appearance. We here mention it because an Englishman cannot pass it without remembering that Shakspere's Macbeth was Thane of Glammis, which reverted to the crown at his death. King Malcolm II. died in this castle, and James V. used it for some time as a country residence. A number of interesting apartments, containing memorials of the past, are yet shown to strangers, for the castle is kept in good repair. From Glammis to beyond Forfar-a very old country town of nearly 10,000 inhabitants

we pass tracts of boggy moorland, and a variety of lochs of inconsiderable size, but which give a distinct character to the scenery. Further on, the landscape reminds one of some parts of the English midland counties, being gently undulating and well cultivated; trees dotting the hedgerows, and fine plantations and woods in the distance, with ranges of hills-high enough to be called mountains in England-for a background. Onward speeds the hissing locomotive, and we cross Monroman Muir, and next we rattle over a viaduct above the South Esk river. Beyond Laurencekirk is an extremely fine agricultural district called the "Howe o' the Mearns," and a few miles further on we pass between mighty walls of living rock, hewn by Herculean labour, and emerge in the Vale of Carron Water. Grossing the Carron by a viaduct, we glide through thick dark plantations, and ere long arrive at Stonehaven station. The little town itself is situated some distance from the station, on the coast, where it possesses the advantage of a good and safe harbour. The scenery in the immediate locality is fine and picturesque; but northward, all the way to Aberdeen, the character

of the country entirely changes, presenting little to the eye except monotonous moorlands and barren-looking hills. But the railroad passes along parallel to, and at no great distance from, the sea, and if we have a swampy gloomy country on the left, we are compensated by a grand view of the North Sea on the right, the cliffs of solid rock rising high above the level of the ocean, and presenting a strikingly bold and stern front to its restless waves, which oft break here with terrible fury. The train in some places sweeps closely along the edge of the cliffs, whence an exceedingly grand prospect sea-ward must delight summer tourists who travel by this line. Half-a-dozen fishing villages nestle in bays and coves of the coast between Stonehaven and Aberdeen, and one of them is far renowned. We allude to Findon, locally called Finnan, which for a long period has been celebrated for its delicious cured haddocks, known throughout the kingdom as "Finnans." The fisherwives split and dress these haddocks and then hang them over peat fires in their houses, and the peculiar qualities of the peat smoke impart to the fish a delicate and singularly appetising flavour, rendering them a capital accompaniment to breakfast or tea. Many haddocks, however, find their way into the market as "Finnans" which are, in fact, cured at distant places, and are decidedly inferior to the genuine article, which is only prepared at Findon and the neighbouring fishing stations. Finally, we pass Cove, the nearest fishing village to Aberdeen; and a worthy Aberdonian on his way from Glasgow to spend the new year with his friends in his native city, and who for the last hour has almost bewildered us by his garrulous descriptions of local places, objects, and customs, exultingly points out to us a lofty light, which he says proceeds from Girdleness lighthouse. We soon lose sight of it; and meanwhile, we quite unconsciously are going over, or through, the Grampian hills

-for that great rocky chain, so familiar by name to every English schoolboy, as it stretches across the country, gradually lessens in elevation to the eastward, until it reaches the vicinity of the sea-coast, where the stranger would hardly note its existence were he not informed of the fact. Now the lights of Aberdeen hospitably twinkle through a species of Scotch mist-a mist which, according to a true old saying, would wet an Englishman to the skin!-and we rush

VOL. VII. N. S.

through a granite cutting, and ere long glide at slackened speed across an iron bridge spanning the Dee, and then-yes, and then we are at the end of our long, cold winter day's journey, and we trudge on foot after our guide through streets crowded with people doing their Saturday-evening marketings, until we reach one of the many excellent hotels in Union Street-the street of Aberdeen-where we thankfully enough find cosy quarters.

Aberdeen, until a few years ago, was the third city in Scotland for population, but we are informed that now it ranks only fourth, the thriving and commercially-spirited town of Dundee having surpassed it considerably in that respect. It is, however, and will long continue to be, the capital of the North of Scotland. In 1851 the population of the parliamentary city of Aberdeen, including some outlying parishes, was 71,973. Old Aberdeen, which we shall hereafter describe, numbered 2,000 souls. It would be out of place here to speak of the early history of Aberdeen, but we may mention that it has been a city for many centuries, and that its existence as a town can be traced back-if local historians do not err-to the first century of the Christian era. The situation of the place is highly favourable for commerce, and for the position of the chief north-eastern city of the kingdom. It is built on rising ground on the north side of the river Dee, just above the junction of the latter with the German Ocean. Here, then, is the GRANITE CITY, which we have travelled so far to see. The Granite City! Yes, the designation is not merely fanciful, but literally true; and the Aberdonians have reason to be proud of the material of which their city is built-though as to its general architectural merit, that is quite another matter. The grand distinctive feature of Aberdeenthat which renders it unique to the eye of a stranger-is the substance of which it is built. Very nearly the entire city is of dressed granite, and no other material is now used for building purposes. This beautiful sparkling stone is obtained from quarries a few miles distant, and varies in shade from a light to a darkish grey-the former, however, is most common- - and sometimes is of a rich red colour, but we believe the latter kind is chiefly, if not entirely, derived from quarries near Peterhead, a considerable distance further north. The common Aberdeen granite is so hard that

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