and over, in vain. At last, after a happy dinner at Hanley--why are the
dinners always happy at Hanley?--and a drive home alone through

"The gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme"

of a midsummer night, I sat down about twelve and rose at four, having
finished it. I slunk off to bed, satisfied and cold. I don't think I
made almost any changes in it. I read it to the Biggar folk in the
school-house, very frightened, and felt I was reading it ill, and their
honest faces intimated as much in their affectionate puzzled looks. I
gave it on my return home to some friends, who liked the story; and the
first idea was to print it, as now, with illustrations, on the principle
of Rogers's joke, "that it would be dished except for the plates."

But I got afraid of the public, and paused. Meanwhile, some good friend
said Rab might be thrown in among the other idle hours, and so he was;
and it is a great pleasure to me to think how many new friends he got.

I was at Biggar the other day, and some of the good folks told me, with
a grave smile peculiar to that region, that when Rab came to them in
print he was so good that they wouldn't believe he was the same Rab I
had delivered in the school-room,--a testimony to my vocal powers of
impressing the multitude somewhat conclusive.

I need not add that this little story is, in all essentials, true,
though, if I were Shakespeare, it might be curious to point out where
Phantasy tried her hand, sometimes where least suspected.

It has been objected to it as a work of art that there is too much pain;
and many have said to me, with some bitterness, "Why did you make me