r proverb, that "familiarity breeds
contempt;" and we assuredly think, that the constant fireside
association of young folks, trained up together in bread-and-butter
ease, is more apt to generate calm friendship than warm affection.

But, as we have said, our cousins were brought up asunder; he in
England, of which country his father was an eminent physician lately
deceased, who had bequeathed to his only son his professional ability,
with ample means of commencing his career in a handsome manner. When he
first came to Scotland to visit his mother's sister, he found her a
corpse; and there, in the house of mourning, the consoler of the
motherless Barbara, he learnt to love her with a sincerity of affection
to which she fully responded. Great was his vexation and surprise to
receive a stern denial of his suit from the minister, who, although he
had never testified any degree of partiality for his wife's nephew, had,
nevertheless, evinced no dislike of him. But when respectfully called
upon to assign a reason for so unexpected a rejection, he briefly said,
that "no child of his should with his blessing wed any man who was not a
strict Presbyterian; and that, moreover, he had other views for his
daughter." Nor were the tears of his child, nor the intercession in
their favor of his kindhearted but timid old maiden sister, of any
effect. His obstinacy was not to be subdued, nor his will opposed; and
the unrelenting preacher, who taught humility, love, and concord from
his pulpit, and who could produce not one sensible reason for thwarting
the attachment of two amiable creatures, concluded the scene by flying
into a furious passion, in which he gave John Percival clearly to
understand, that he was no longer an acceptable, or even permitted,
guest.

The young man left the manse immediately, and was not slow in quitting
Scotland; but love, which teaches many things, taught the kinsfolk means
of keeping up, though at rare intervals, an epistolary communion--so
frequently the one sustaining prop of two divided hearts!

A year or more passed, finding them true to each other. Barbara refused
several excellent proposals of marriage, nor did her father persecute
her with expressed wishes for her acceptance of any of them; until, at
length, he introduced to her one Mr. Bruce, a wealthy cloth-merchant
from Glasgow. He was a man of about fifty years of age, of a
well-favored and portly presence, and accounted a sure and somewhat sour