that way himself, as he said if he had met us nearer a public-house he would have “treated us to a good glass.”  We thought what a pity it was that men had not a better eye to their own future interests than to spend all their money “for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not,” and how many there were who would ultimately become burdens to society who might have secured a comfortable competency for old age by wisely investing their surplus earnings instead of allowing them to flow down that awful channel of waste!

[Illustration:  ST. MICHAEL’S WELL.]

We walked through a fine agricultural district—­for we were now in Midlothian—­adorned with great family mansions surrounded by well-kept grounds, and arrived in sight of Edinburgh at 1.30, and by two o’clock we were opposite a large building which we were told was Donaldson’s Hospital, founded in 1842, and on which about L100,000 had been spent.

Our first business on reaching Edinburgh was to find suitable lodgings until Monday morning, and we decided to stay at Fogg’s Temperance Hotel in the city.  We had then to decide whether we should visit Edinburgh Castle or Holyrood Palace that day—­both being open to visitors at the same hour in the afternoon, but as they were some distance apart we could not explore both; we decided in favour of the palace, where we were conducted through the picture gallery and the many apartments connected with Mary Queen of Scots and her husband Lord Darnley.

The picture-gallery contained the reputed portraits of all the Kings of Scotland from Fergus I, 330 B.C., down to the end of the Stuart dynasty; and my brother, who claimed to have a “painter’s eye,” as he had learned something of that art when at school, discovered a great similarity between the portraits of the early kings and those that followed them centuries later.  Although I explained that it was only an illustration of history repeating itself, and reminded him of the adage, “Like father, like son,” he was not altogether satisfied.  We found afterwards, indeed, that the majority of the portraits had been painted by a Flemish artist, one John de Witt, who in the year 1684 made a contract, which was still in existence, whereby he bound himself to paint no portraits within two years, he supplying the canvas and colours, and the Government paying him L120 per year and supplying him with the “originalls” from which he was to copy.  We wondered what had become of these “originalls,” especially that of Fergus, 330 B.C., but as no information was forthcoming we agreed to consider them as lost in the mists of antiquity.

[Illustration:  HOLYROOD PALACE.]