new place. It is extraordinary that
people should have been so deceived in so careless an impostor; that a
few sprinkled "God willings" should have blinded them to the essence of
this venomous letter; and that they should have been at the pains to
bind it in with others (many of them highly touching) in their memorial
of harrowing days. But the good ladies were without guile and without
suspicion; they were victims marked for the axe, and the religious
impostors snuffed up the wind as they drew near.

I have referred above to my grandmother; it was no slip of the pen: for
by an extraordinary arrangement, in which it is hard not to suspect the
managing hand of a mother, Jean Smith became the wife of Robert
Stevenson. Mrs. Smith had failed in her design to make her son a
minister, and she saw him daily more immersed in business and worldly
ambition. One thing remained that she might do: she might secure for him
a godly wife, that great means of sanctification; and she had two under
her hand, trained by herself, her dear friends and daughters both in law
and love--Jean and Janet. Jean's complexion was extremely pale, Janet's
was florid; my grandmother's nose was straight, my great-aunt's
aquiline; but by the sound of the voice, not even a son was able to
distinguish one from other. The marriage of a man of twenty-seven and a
girl of twenty who have lived for twelve years as brother and sister, is
difficult to conceive. It took place, however, and thus in 1799 the
family was still further cemented by the union of a representative of
the male or worldly element with one of the female and devout.

This essential difference remained unbridged, yet never diminished the
strength of their relation. My grandfather pursued his design of
advancing in the world with some measure of success; rose to distinction
in his calling, grew to be the familiar of members of Parliament, judges
of the Court of Session, and "landed gentlemen"; learned a ready
address, had a flow of interesting conversation, and when he was
referred to as "a highly respectable _bourgeois_," resented the
description. My grandmother remained to the end devout and unambitious,
occupied with her Bible, her children, and her house; easily shocked,
and associating largely with a clique of godly parasites. I do not know
if she called in the midwife already referred to; but the principle on
which that lady was recommended, she accepted fully. The cook was a
godly woman, t