and anon, as the baillie came down the stair from
carrying his daughter's meal, he said to himself: "I shall make the
sight of the laird the blithest she ever saw in her life."

Lady Dalcastle got plenty of time to read, and pray, and meditate; but
she was at a great loss for one to dispute with about religious tenets;
for she found that, without this advantage, about which there was a
perfect rage at that time, the reading and learning of Scripture texts,
and sentences of intricate doctrine, availed her naught; so she was
often driven to sit at her casement and look out for the approach of
the heathenish Laird of Dalcastle.

That hero, after a considerable lapse of time, at length made his
appearance. Matters were not hard to adjust; for his lady found that
there was no refuge for her in her father's house; and so, after some
sighs and tears, she accompanied her husband home. For all that had
passed, things went on no better. She WOULD convert the laird in spite
of his teeth: the laird would not be converted. She WOULD have the
laird to say family prayers, both morning and evening: the laird would
neither pray morning nor evening. He would not even sing psalms, and
kneel beside her while she performed the exercise; neither would he
converse at all times, and in all places, about the sacred mysteries of
religion, although his lady took occasion to contradict flatly every
assertion that he made, in order that she might spiritualize him by
drawing him into argument.

The laird kept his temper a long while, but at length his patience wore
out; he cut her short in all her futile attempts at spiritualization,
and mocked at her wire-drawn degrees of faith, hope, and repentance. He
also dared to doubt of the great standard doctrine of absolute
predestination, which put the crown on the lady's Christian resentment.
She declared her helpmate to be a limb of Antichrist, and one with whom
no regenerated person could associate. She therefore bespoke a separate
establishment, and, before the expiry of the first six months, the
arrangements of the separation were amicably adjusted. The upper, or
third, story of the old mansion-house was awarded to the lady for her
residence. She had a separate door, a separate stair, a separate
garden, and walks that in no instance intersected the laird's; so that
one would have thought the separation complete. They had each their own
parties, selected from their own sort of people; and, though th