There arrived, we found the hall crowded, and with difficulty made our way to the platform.  Whether owing to the stimulating effect of the air from the ocean, or to the comparatively social aspect of the scene, or perhaps to both, certain it is, that we enjoyed the meeting with great zest.  I was surrounded on the stage with blooming young ladies, one of whom put into my hands a beautiful bouquet, some flowers of which I have now dried in my album.  The refreshment tables were adorned with some exquisite wax flowers, the work, as I was afterwards told, of a young lady in the place.  One of the designs especially interested me.  It was a group of water lilies resting on a mirror, which gave them the appearance of growing in the water.

We had some very animated speaking, in which the speakers contrived to blend enthusiastic admiration and love for America with detestation of slavery.

All the afternoon the beautiful coast had reminded me of the State of Maine, and the genius of the meeting confirmed the association.  They seemed to me to be a plain, genial, strong, warm-hearted people, like those of Maine.

One of the speakers concluded his address by saying that John Bull and Brother Jonathan, with Paddy and Sandy Scott, should they clasp hands together, might stand against the world; which sentiment was responded to with thunders of applause.

It is because America, like Scotland, has stood for right against oppression, that the Scotch love and sympathize with her.  For this reason do they feel it as something taken from the strength of a common cause, when America sides with injustice and oppression.  The children of the Covenant and the children of the Puritans are of one blood.

They presented an offering in a beautiful embroidered purse, and after much shaking of hands we went home, and sat down to the supper table, for a little more chat, before going to bed.  The next morning,—­as we had only till noon to stay in Aberdeen,—­our friends, the lord provost, and Mr. Leslie, the architect, came immediately after breakfast to show us the place.

The town of Aberdeen is a very fine one, and owes much of its beauty to the light-colored granite of which most of the houses are built.  It has broad, clean, beautiful streets, and many very curious and interesting public buildings.  The town exhibits that union of the hoary past with the bustling present which is characteristic of the old world.

It has two parts, the old and the new, as unlike as L’Allegro and Penseroso—­the new, clean, and modern; the old, mossy and dreamy.  The old town is called Alton, and has venerable houses, standing, many of them, in ancient gardens.  And here rises the peculiar, old, gray cathedral.  These Scotch cathedrals have a sort of stubbed appearance, and look like the expression in stone of defiant, invincible resolution.  This is of primitive granite, in the same heavy, massive style as the cathedral of Glasgow, but having strong individualities of its own.