erday. They gave me a most magnificent welcome back
from America last night.

I am perpetually counting the weeks before me to be "read" through, and
am perpetually longing for the end of them; and yet I sometimes wonder
whether I shall miss something when they are over.

It is a very, very bad day here, very dark and very wet. Dolby is over
at Glasgow, and I am sitting at a side window looking up the length of
Prince's Street, watching the mist change over the Castle and murdering
Nancy by turns.

Ever affectionately.

P.S.--I have read the whole of Fitzgerald's "Zero," and the idea is
exceedingly well wrought out.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Saturday, Dec. 12th, 1868._

I send another _Scotsman_ by this post, because it is really a good
newspaper, well written, and well managed. We had an immense house here
last night, and a very large turn-away.

We have four guests to dinner to-day: Peter Fraser, Ballantyne, John
Blackwood, and Mr. Russel. Immense preparations are making in the
establishment, "on account," Mr. Kennedy says, "of a' four yon chiels
being chiels wha' ken a guid dinner." I enquired after poor Doctor Burt,
not having the least idea that he was dead.

My voice holds out splendidly so far, and I have had no return of the
American. But I sleep very indifferently indeed.

It blew appallingly here the night before last, but the wind has since
shifted northward, and it is now bright and cold. The _Star of Hope_,
that picked up those shipwrecked people in the boat, came into Leith
yesterday, and was received with tremendous cheers. Her captain must be
a good man and a noble fellow.

[Sidenote: The same.]

KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Monday, Dec. 14th, 1868._

The dinner-party of Saturday last was an immense success. Russel swore
on the occasion that he would go over to Belfast expressly to dine with
me at the Finlays'. Ballantyne informed me that he was going to send you
some Scotch remembrance (I don't know what) at Christmas!

The Edinburgh houses are very fine. The Glasgow room is a big wandering
place, with five prices in it, which makes it the more aggravating, as
the people get into knots which they can't break, as if they were afraid
of one another.

Forgery of my name is becoming popular. You sent me, this morning, a
letter from Russell Sturgis, answering a supposed letter