is property, which
amuses me besides; our wants are amply supplied by my L1600
a year official income: nor have we a wish or a motive to
extend our expenses beyond that of the decencies and
hospitality of our station in life; so that my other
resources remain for buying land in future, or improving
what we have. No doubt Abbotsford, in maintaining our
establishment during the summer, may be reckoned L150 or
L200 saved on what we must otherwise buy; and if we could
arrange to have mutton and beef {p.223} occasionally from
the farm in winter, it would be a still greater saving. All
this you will consider: for Tom, thoroughly honest and very
clever in his way, has no kind of generalizing, and would
often like to save sixpence in his own department at the
expense of my paying five shillings in another. This is his
fault, and when you join to it a Scotch slovenliness which
leads him to see things half-finished without pain or
anxiety, I do not know any other he has--but such as they
are, these must be guarded against. For our housemaid (for
housekeeper we must not call her), I should like much a hawk
of a nest so good as that you mention: but would not such a
place be rather beneath her views? Her duty would be to look
to scrupulous cleanliness within doors, and employ her
leisure in spinning, or plain-work, as wanted. When we came
out for a blink, she would be expected to cook a little in a
plain way, and play maid of all work; when we were
stationary, she would assist the housemaid and superintend
the laundry. Probably your aunt's granddaughter will have
pretensions to something better than this; but as we are to
be out on the 12th March, we will talk it over. Assuredly a
well-connected steady person would be of the greatest
consequence to us. I like your plan of pitting much; and to
compromise betwixt you and Tom, do one half with superior
attention, and slit in the others for mere nurses. But I am
no friend to that same slitting.

[Footnote 94: John Usher, the ex-proprietor of
Toftfield, was eventually Scott's tenant on part of
those lands for many years. He was a man of far superior
rank and intelligence to the rest of the displaced
lairds--and came presently to be one of Scott's t