been of use to him ever since, and which he now hands on,
with his good wishes, to the reader.

At length, Edinburgh, with her satellite hills and
all the sloping country, are sheeted up in white. If it
has happened in the dark hours, nurses pluck their
children out of bed and run with them to some commanding
window, whence they may see the change that has been
worked upon earth's face. 'A' the hills are covered wi'
snaw,' they sing, 'and Winter's noo come fairly!' And
the children, marvelling at the silence and the white
landscape, find a spell appropriate to the season in the
words. The reverberation of the snow increases the pale
daylight, and brings all objects nearer the eye. The
Pentlands are smooth and glittering, with here and there
the black ribbon of a dry-stone dyke, and here and there,
if there be wind, a cloud of blowing snow upon a
shoulder. The Firth seems a leaden creek, that a man
might almost jump across, between well-powdered Lothian
and well-powdered Fife. And the effect is not, as in
other cities, a thing of half a day; the streets are soon
trodden black, but the country keeps its virgin white;
and you have only to lift your eyes and look over miles
of country snow. An indescribable cheerfulness breathes
about the city; and the well-fed heart sits lightly and
beats gaily in the - bosom. It is New-year's weather.

New-year's Day, the great national festival, is a
time of family expansions and of deep carousal.
Sometimes, by a sore stoke of fate for this Calvinistic