ll-sail into controversial subjects, to which
discussions the dignitary listened with much seeming patience, but
without making any reply, or, indeed, as most people thought, without
understanding a single word of what the orator was saying. Deans, indeed,
denied this stoutly, as an insult at once to his own talents for
expounding hidden truths, of which he was a little vain, and to the
Laird's capacity of understanding them. He said, "Dumbiedikes was nane of
these flashy gentles, wi' lace on their skirts and swords at their tails,
that were rather for riding on horseback to hell than gauging barefooted
to heaven. He wasna like his father--nae profane company-keeper--nae
swearer--nae drinker--nae frequenter of play-house, or music-house, or
dancing-house--nae Sabbath-breaker--nae imposer of aiths, or bonds, or
denier of liberty to the flock.--He clave to the warld, and the warld's
gear, a wee ower muckle, but then there was some breathing of a gale upon
his spirit," etc. etc. All this honest Davie said and believed.

It is not to be supposed, that, by a father and a man of sense and
observation, the constant direction of the Laird's eyes towards Jeanie
was altogether unnoticed. This circumstance, however, made a much greater
impression upon another member of his family, a second helpmate, to wit,
whom he had chosen to take to his bosom ten years after the death of his
first. Some people were of opinion, that Douce Davie had been rather
surprised into this step, for, in general, he was no friend to marriages
or giving in marriage, and seemed rather to regard that state of society
as a necessary evil,--a thing lawful, and to be tolerated in the
imperfect state of our nature, but which clipped the wings with which we
ought to soar upwards, and tethered the soul to its mansion of clay, and
the creature-comforts of wife and bairns. His own practice, however, had
in this material point varied from his principles, since, as we have
seen, he twice knitted for himself this dangerous and ensnaring
entanglement.

Rebecca, his spouse, had by no means the same horror of matrimony, and as
she made marriages in imagination for every neighbour round, she failed
not to indicate a match betwixt Dumbiedikes and her step-daughter Jeanie.
The goodman used regularly to frown and pshaw whenever this topic was
touched upon, but usually ended by taking his bonnet and walking out of
the house, to conceal a certain gleam of satisfaction, which, a