My mother felt that her children were receiving a much better education than she had had.  The education seemed to begin after she left school.  Her father united with six other tenant farmers in buying the third edition of “The Encyclopedia Briannica,” seven for the price of six.  Probably it was only in East Lothian that seven such purchasers could be found, and my mother studied it well, as also the unabridged Johnson’s Dictionary in two volumes.  She learned the Greek letters, so that she could read the derivations, but went no further.  She saw the fallacy of Mr. Pitt’s sinking fund when her father believed in it.  To borrow more than was needed so as to put aside part on compound interest, would make the price of money rise.  And why should not private people adopt the same way of getting rid of debts?  The father said it would not do for them at all—­it was only practicable for a nation.  The things I recollect of the life in the village of Melrose, of 700 inhabitants, have been talked over with my mother. and many embodied in a little Ms. volume of reminiscences of her life.  I hold more from her than from my father; but. as he was an unlucky speculator, I inherit from him Hope, which is invaluable to a social or political reformer.  School holidays were only a rarity in harvest time for the parish school.  At Miss Phin’s we had. besides, a week at Christmas.  The boys had only New Year’s Day.  Saturday was only a half-holiday.  We all had a holiday for Queen Victoria’s coronation, and I went with a number of school fellows to see Abbotsford, not for the first time in my life.

Two mail coaches—­the Blucher and the Chevy Chase—­ran through Melrose every day.  People went to the post office for their letters, and paid for them on delivery.  My two elder sisters—­Agnes, who died of consumption at the age of 16, and Jessie, afterwards Mrs. Andrew Murray, of Adelaide and Melbourne, went to boarding school with their aunt, Mary Spence, lit Upper Wooden, halfway between Jedburgh and Kelso.  Roxburghshire is rich in old monasteries.  The border lands were more safe in the hands of the church than under feudal lords engaged in perpetual fighting, and the vassals of the abbeys had generally speaking, a more secure existence.  Kelso.  Jedburgh, and Dryburgh Abbeys lay in fertile districts, and I fancy that when these came into the hands of the Lords of the congregation, the vassals looked back with regret on the old times.  I was not sent to Wooden, but kept at home, and I went to a dayschool called by the very popish name of St. Mary’s Convent, though it was quite sufficiently Protestant.  My mother had the greatest confidence in the lady who was at the head of it.  She had been a governess in good situations, and had taught herself Latin, so that she might fit the boys of the family to take a good place in the Edinburgh High School.  She discovered that she had an incurable disease, a form of dropsy, which compelled her to lie down for some