[Sidenote:  T.E.  Brown]

At a great prayer-meeting requests were being made that divers souls, supposed to be in evil case, should be interceded for.  One arose and asked the prayers of the meeting for a little town on the east coast of Scotland, which was “wholly given to idolatry.”  Such was the expression.  A little city, with many schools, also the seat of a University.  Having thus mysteriously indicated the place, the excellent individual plainly felt that no mortal could possibly guess what place he meant; and, putting his hand over his mouth, he said to his friends on the platform, in a hoarse whisper distinctly heard over the entire hall, “St. Andrews!” Isn’t that consummate?  Isn’t it Scotland?...

[Sidenote:  T.E.  Brown]

Walters did an extremely kind thing the other day.  Two old things going about with an entertainment (!) of Recitations (really old, for I heard them “at it” thirty-five years ago), took a letter with them from me to Walters.  It was the merest chance, I thought, but I suggested that just possibly Walters might give them an evening at the College.  By Jove! sir, he did give them an evening, and gave them a substantial fee, and filled their poor trembling cup of Auld lang syne with joy and thanksgiving, and dismissed them with honour, almost reeling with the intoxication of so unwonted a success, the boys giving them a mighty three-times-three which shook the welkin, and stirred amazingly the pulsation of two hearts that have long desisted from the exercise of hope....

[Sidenote:  T.E.  Brown]

I heard one or two good stories at Braddan when I preached there (last Sunday).  One was of a child at the Sunday-school.  “What ought you to do on Sunday?” “Go to church.”  “What ought you to do next?” “Go to chapel.”  Was it not precisely the story for a vicar to tell?  You feel the atmosphere—­what?...

[Sidenote:  T.E.  Brown]

We sat down in some cottages.  Some of the people were magnificent, throwing themselves upon you with such vigour of accent, such warmth and fun, and endless receptivity, bright, well pulled together, sonorous, that I nearly staggered under it—­not chaff—­good heavens! no—­but would have been chaff, only it wasn’t, for they can’t chaff.

Kitty Kermode, alias Kinvig, was the best.  She said a very sweet and profound thing (but I can’t phrase it as I ought) about the value of friendship, as compared with that of love.  A little happy creature of some seventeen giggled in a dark corner, but I let her giggle; the old woman pierced me through and through.  Oh fortunati—­Oh indeed!  And these dear things seemed to know that their lot was a happy one. Quod faustum! Unutterably precious to me is the woman, the native of the hills, almost my own age, or a little younger, whose spirit is set upon the finest springs, and her sympathies have an almost masculine depth, and a length of reflection that wins your confidence and stays your sinking heart.