in so bad a humor is I got
one or two of that bad sina [senna] tea to-day,"--a better excuse for
bad humor and bad language than most.

She has been reading the Book of Esther:--"It was a dreadful thing that
Haman was hanged on the very gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai
to hang him and his ten sons thereon and it was very wrong and cruel to
hang his sons for they did not commit the crime; _but then Jesus was not
then come to teach us to be merciful_." This is wise and beautiful,--has
upon it the very dew of youth and holiness. Out of the mouths of babes
and sucklings He perfects his praise.

"This is Saturday and I am very glad of it because I have play half the
Day and I get money too but alas I owe Isabella 4 pence for I am finned
2 pence whenever I bite my nails. Isabella is teaching me to make
simmecoling nots of interrigations peorids commoes, etc.... As this is
Sunday I will meditate upon Senciable and Religious subjects. First I
should be very thankful I am not a beggar."

This amount of meditation and thankfulness seems to have been all she
was able for.

"I am going to-morrow to a delightfull place, Braehead by name,
belonging to Mrs. Crraford, where there is ducks cocks hens bubblyjocks
2 dogs 2 cats and swine which is delightful. I think it is shocking to
think that the dog and cat should bear them" (this is a meditation
physiological) "and they are drowned after all. I would rather have a
man-dog than a woman-dog, because they do not bear like woman-dogs; it
is a hard case--it is shocking. I came here to enjoy natures delightful
breath it is sweeter than a fial of rose oil."

Braehead is the farm the historical Jock Howison asked and got from our
gay James the Fifth, "the gudeman o' Ballengiech," as a reward for the
services of his flail when the King had the worst of it at Cramond Brig
with the gipsies. The farm is unchanged in size from that time, and
still in the unbroken line of the ready and victorious thrasher.
Braehead is held on the condition of the possessor being ready to
present the King with a ewer and basin to wash his hands, Jock having
done this for his unknown king after the _splore_; and when George the
Fourth came to Edinburgh, this ceremony was performed in silver
at Holyrood.

It is a lovely neuk, this Braehead, preserved almost as it was two
hundred years ago. "Lot and his wife," mentioned by Maidie,--two
quaintly cropped yew-trees,--still thrive; the burn runs as it did