rather, I shall listen to the
last comer--this comes often to the same thing as weighing
well. Adieu dear, dear friend! My most sincere wishes to
Madame Franchomme for her children. I hope that Rene amuses
himself with his bass, that Cecile works well, and that their
little sister always reads her books. Remember me to Madame
Lasserve, I pray you, and correct my orthography as well as my
French.

The following words are written along the margin:--

The people here are ugly, but, it would seem, good. As a
compensation there are charming, apparently mischievous,
cattle, perfect milk, butter, eggs, and tout ce qui s'en suit,
cheese and chickens.

To save the reader from becoming confused by allusions in Chopin's
letters to names of unknown persons and places, I will now say a few
words about the composer's Scotch friends. The Stirlings of Keir,
generally regarded as the principal family of the name, are said to be
descended from Walter de Striveline, Strivelyn, or Strivelyng, Lucas of
Strivelyng (1370-1449) being the first possessor of Keyr. The family was
for about two centuries engaged in the East India and West India trade.
Archibald Stirling, the father of the late baronet, went, as William
Fraser relates in The Stirlings of Keir, like former younger sons,
to Jamaica, where he was a planter for nearly twenty-five years. He
succeeded his brother James in 1831, greatly improved the mansion,
and died in 1847. When Chopin visited Keir it was in the possession of
William Stirling, who, in 1865, became Sir William Stirling-Maxwell (his
mother was a daughter of Sir John Maxwell), and is well-known by his
literary works--Annals of the Artists of Spain (1848), The Cloister Life
of the Emperor Charles V. (1852), Velasquez (1855), &c. He was the uncle
of Jane Stirling and Mrs. Erskine, daughters (the former the youngest
daughter) of John Stirling, of Kippendavie and Kippenross, and friends
of Chopin. W. Hanna, the editor of the Letters of Thomas Erskine of
Linlathen, says that Jane Stirling was a cousin and particular friend
of Thomas Erskine. The latter used in later life to regard her and the
Duchess de Broglie as the most remarkable women he had ever met:--

In her later years she lived much in Paris, and counted among
her friends there Ary Scheffer. In his "Christus Consolator,"
this eminent artist has presented in one of the figures his
ideal of female beauty, and was struck on being f