the wainscot could admit of a press on each side of the
sideboard. I don't mean a formal press with a high door, but
some crypt, or, to speak vulgarly, _cupboard_, to put away
bottles of wine, etc. You know I am my own butler, and such
accommodation is very convenient. We begin roofing
to-morrow. Wilkie admires the whole as a composition, and
that is high authority. I agree that the fountain shall be
out of doors in front of the greenhouse; there may be an
enclosure for it with some ornamented mason work, as in old
gardens, and it will occupy an angle, which I should be
puzzled what to do with, for turf and gravel would be rather
meagre, and flowers not easily kept. I have the old fountain
belonging to the Cross of Edinburgh, which flowed with wine
at the coronation of our kings and on other occasions of
{p.197} public rejoicing. I send a sketch of this venerable
relic, connected as it is with a thousand associations. It
is handsome in its forms and proportions--a freestone basin
about three feet in diameter, and five inches and a half in
depth, very handsomely hollowed. A piece has been broken off
one edge, but as we have the fragment, it can easily be
restored with cement. There are four openings for pipes in
the circumference--each had been covered with a Gothic
masque, now broken off and defaced, but which may be easily
restored. Through these the wine had fallen into a larger
and lower reservoir. I intend this for the centre of my
fountain. I do not believe I should save L100 by retaining
Mrs. Redford, by the time she was raised, altered, and
beautified, for, like the Highlandman's gun, she wants
stock, lock, and barrel, to put her into repair. In the mean
time, "the cabin is convenient." Yours ever,

W. S.

[Footnote 80: Before the second and larger part of the
present house of Abbotsford was built, the small room,
subsequently known as the breakfast parlor, was during
several years Scott's _sanctum_.]

[Footnote 81: This alludes to certain pieces of painted
glass, representing the heads of some of the old Scotch
kings, copied from the carved ceiling of the
presence-chamber in Stirling Castle. There are