Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/425

 ; and as you may be curious to know of what materials it is composed, I am happy to be able to inform you, having been at the trouble to dissect one on purpose; when, to my great astonishment, I found, instead of the usual quantity of tow and horse-hair, an assemblage of old ropes, every piece of which was so ingeniously knotted, as to evince in how many useful purposes they had been employed, before they reached their destined state of preferment.

My earnest desire of rendering an essential service to the daughter of my old friend Mrs MacClarty, has, I am afraid, led me to trespass too long upon your patience; but the preference shewn by travellers for the inn at the next stage, will be a sufficient apology for my partiality; and account for the dread I entertain of the impending ruin which threatens to overwhelm this last branch of the old and respectable stock of the MacClartys. When I inform you, that the rival inn is kept by a scholar of Mrs Mason's, you will quickly perceive that my fears are not without foundation: and yet I must own the reason of the preference given to it by the public, appears to me to imply a contradiction. Why are people of fortune so fond of travelling, but on account of