years since I came frae the Black Boy in the Gallowgate to the Buck's Head, and no yae stranger, in a' that time, has ever found hack and manger wi' David Spreull."

"How is the old gentleman ?" I asked; "hale and stout, I hope, and bearing his declining years as lightly as can be expected?"

"Atweel, Major," replied my landlady, glancing, at the same time, at her own portly and capacious figure, "Time tells upon us a'. For my part, I think I get fatter and sonsier every year o' my life, though, to be sure, I'm a hantle younger than Mr. Spreull; but he, puir man, seems just dwindling awa' to a perfect atomy. It's no aboon a month sin' I saw him hirple past on the Trongate, for he still gangs on foot when the weather's gude, baith to the countin'-house and the coffee-room; there he was, hirplin awa' wi' his staff in his nieve, just a leevin' spectacle o' approaching mortality. It's easy aneuch seen he's no lang for this world."

The arrival of a carriage at length put a stop to the conversation; and the loquacious landlady bustled down stairs to receive her new guests, with as much celerity of motion as lay within the scope of

her volition to communicate to the voluminous mass of matter by which she was encumbered.

Dinner was duly served; and after spending a quiet and solitary evening, I retired to bed. On the following morning, after breakfast, having lounged an hour or two in an arm-chair, from a dread, perhaps, of a scene, which would scarcely fail to bring with it some painful emotion, I set out for the residence of my uncle.

CHAPTER XIII.

I am old, I am old. I love thee better than e'er a scurvy young

boy of them all.

Henry IV.

That is not forgot

Which ne'er I did remember; to my knowledge,

I never in my life did look on him.

Winter's Tale.

As I walked through the well-known streets which led from the Trongate to my uncle's residence, I recognised, as old friends, the picturesque, dark, and somewhat venerable-looking buildings by which they were flanked. The external crust of smoke, which coated their surface, had been somewhat deepened since I had last seen them; in other respects I could detect no change. The names, indeed, on the large sign-boards displayed in front of the houses, I thought, were generally different from those which had formerly become familiar to my eye. In some cases I knew this to

be so, for several names which yet lingered on my

memory, were gone.

The dwelling of my uncle, however, soon came in sight, and on that alone my gaze was riveted. I paused right in front, and looking up to the windows, endeavoured to catch a glimpse of its inmates. There were none visible. I knew my uncle's parlour, but the window-panes were so deeply embrowned by smoke and dust as to baffle the penetration of the keenest eye.

For a few minutes I stood thus occupied, then slowly crossing the street, I ascended the wellremembered stair, and reached the landing-place. Here I again paused, in a momentary fit of irresolution, with the raised knocker in my hand, which I wanted courage to let fall. My uncle's name was still-though not without difficulty-legible on the door-plate, and bade fair soon to be entirely erased by the friction of the brick-dust, with which, for so many years, it had been daily brightened by the fingers of the house-maid. No paint had touched the panels since my departure, and age had told on these, as it had done on the living inhabitants within.

At length the knocker fell. The sound, I thought, was a hollow and a mournful one, and I waited, not without some palpitation, for an answer to my signal. After some time, the door was opened, and I bent a keen glance on the countenance which presented itself to my view. It was not that of Girzy, and had it even been Jenny's, it could not, I thought, have escaped my memory. But the person that awaited my demands, though not Jenny, was clearly another individual belonging to the same variety of the species. She was dirty as her predecessor; like her was without shoes or stockings, and wore on her head, a soiled and rumpled mutch, the flaps of which hung down like dog's-ears on either side of a countenance evidently not often washed, but to which all the cosmetics in the world could have lent no charm.

The damsel, to whom my minute examination of her person appeared by no means gratifying, soon lost patience, and was the first to break silence, holding the door barely ajar as she spoke, and eyeing me somewhat askance.