any of
the bare-legged dandies yet with a high silk hat and an umbrella, but I
expect it won't be long before I meet one. We often see the Highland
soldiers that belong to the garrison at the castle, and they look
mighty fine with their plaid shawls and their scarfs and their
feathers; but to see a man who looks as if one half of him belonged to
London Bridge and the other half to the Highland moors, does look to
me like a pretty bad mixture.

I am not so sure, either, that the whole Highland dress isn't better
suited to Egypt, where it doesn't often rain, than to Scotland. Last
Saturday we was at St. Giles's Church, and the man who took us around
told us we ought to come early next morning and see the military
service, which was something very fine; and as Jone gave him a shilling
he said he would be on hand and watch for us, and give us a good place
where we could see the soldiers come in. On Sunday morning it rained
hard, but we was both at the church before eight o'clock, and so was a
good many other people, but the doors was shut and they wouldn't let us
in. They told us it was such a bad morning that the soldiers could not
come out, and so there would be no military service that day. I don't
know whether those fine fellows thought that the colors would run out
of their beautiful plaids, or whether they would get rheumatism in
their knees; but it did seem to me pretty hard that soldiers could not
come out in the weather that lots of common citizens didn't seem to
mind at all. I was a good deal put out, for I hate to get up early for
nothing, but there was no use saying anything, and all we could do was
to go home, as all the other people with full suits of clothes did.

Jone and I have got so much more to see before we go home, that it is
very well we are both able to skip around lively. Of course there are
ever and ever so many places that we want to go to, but can't do it,
but I am bound to see the Highlands and the country of the "Lady of the
Lake." We have been reading up Walter Scott, and I think more than I
ever did that he is perfectly splendid. While we was in Edinburgh we
felt bound to go and see Melrose Abbey and Abbotsford. I shall not say
much about these two places, but I will say that to go into Sir Walter
Scott's library and sit in the old armchair he used to sit in, at the
desk he used to write on, and see his books and things around me, gave
me more a feeling of reverentialism than I have had in a