Page:John James Audubon (Burroughs).djvu/106

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JOHN JAMES AUDUBON

which thought me unworthy to be a member," he writes.

About this time he was a guest for a day or two of Earl Morton, at his estate Dalmahoy, near Edinburgh. He had expected to see an imposing personage in the great Chamberlain to the late queen Charlotte. What was his relief and surprise, then, to see a "small, slender man, tottering on his feet, weaker than a newly hatched partridge," who welcomed him with tears in his eyes. The countess, "a fair, fresh-complexioned woman, with dark, flashing eyes," wrote her name in his subscription book, and offered to pay the price in advance. The next day he gave her a lesson in drawing.

On his return to Edinburgh he dined with Captain Hall, to meet Francis Jeffrey. "Jeffrey is a little man," he writes, "with a serious face and dignified air. He looks both shrewd and cunning, and talks with so much