ngest baby, as she
leant down to take it up for a screen to hide her blushing face, that
reddent with the thought at seeing one who had so witnessed her sister's
shame.

From that hour her image had a dear place in my grandfather's bosom, and
after the settlement of the Reformation throughout the realm, he courted
her, and she became his wife, and in process of time my grandmother. But
of her manifold excellencies I shall have occasion to speak more at
large hereafter, for she was no ordinary woman, but a saint throughout
life, returning in a good old age to her Maker, almost as blameless as
she came from His pure hands; and nothing became her more in all her
piety, than the part she acted towards her guilty sister.

Having taken away the children, she then brought in divers refreshments,
and a flagon of posset; but she remained not with the bailie and my
grandfather while they partook thereof; so that they were left free to
converse as they listed, and my grandfather was glad to find, as I have
already said, that the poor man had triumphed over his fond grief, and
was reconciled to his misfortunes as well as any father could well be,
with so many deserted babies, and three of them daughters.

He likewise learnt, with no less solace and satisfaction, that the
Reformed were strong in Crail, and that the magistrates and beinest
burgesses had been present on the day before at the preaching of John
Knox, and had afterwards suffered the people to demolish the images and
all the monuments of papistry, without molestation or hinderance; so
that the town was cleansed of the pollution of idolatry, and the worship
of humble and contrite hearts established there, instead of the pagan
pageantry of masses and altars.

After the repast was finished, the bailie conducted my grandfather to
the house where John Knox then lodged, to whom he communicated his
message from the Lord James Stuart.

"Tell your master," was the reply of the Reformer, "that I will be with
him, God willing; and God is willing, for this invitation, and the state
of men's minds, maketh His will manifest. Yea, I was minded myself to go
thither; for that same city of St Andrews is the Zion of Scotland. Of
old, the glad tidings of salvation were first heard there,--there,
amidst the damps and the darkness of ages, the ancient Culdees, men
whose memory is still fragrant for piety and purity of faith and life,
supplied the oil of the lamp of the living God for a pe