which my housekeeping book (written in English) showed the amount
laid out, and my purse the remaining cash. One of the principal
things required was to market, and about six weeks after coming to
England I was sent alone among fishwomen, butchers, basket-women,
etc., and I brought home whatever in my fright I could pick up. . . .
My brother ALEX., who was now returned from his summer engagement,
used to watch me at a distance, unknown to me, till he saw me safe
on my way home. But all attempts to introduce any order in our
little household proved vain, owing to the servant my brother then
had. And what still further increased my difficulty was, that my
brother's time was entirely taken up with business, so that I only
saw him at meals. Breakfast was at seven o'clock or before--much too
early for me, who would rather have remained up all night than be
obliged to rise at so early an hour. . . .

"The three winter months passed on very heavily. I had to struggle
against _heimwehe_ (home sickness) and low spirits, and to answer my
sister's melancholy letters on the death of her husband, by which
she became a widow with six children. I knew too little English to
derive any consolation from the society of those who were about me,
so that, dinner-time excepted, I was entirely left to myself."

So the winter passed.

"The time when I could hope to receive a little more of my brother's
instruction and attention was now drawing near; for after Easter,
Bath becomes very empty, only a few of his scholars, whose families
were resident in the neighborhood, remaining. But I was greatly
disappointed; for, in consequence of the harassing and fatiguing
life he had led during the winter months, he used to retire to bed
with a basin of milk or glass of water, and SMITH'S _Harmonics_ and
_Optics_, FERGUSON'S _Astronomy_, etc., and so went to sleep buried
under his favorite authors; and his first thoughts on rising were
how to obtain instruments for viewing those objects himself of which
he had been reading. There being in one of the shops a
two-and-a-half-foot Gregorian telescope to be let, it was for some
time taken in requisition, and served not only for viewing the
heavens, but for making experiments on its construction. . . . It soon
appeared that my brother was not contented with knowing what former