breviation of Femie, which in Scotland is equally commonly applied to
persons called Euphemia.

In this state of quiet and unostentatious enjoyment, there were, besides
the ordinary rubs and ruffles which disturb even the most uniform life,
two things which particularly chequered Mrs. Butler's happiness. "Without
these," she said to our informer, "her life would have been but too
happy; and perhaps," she added, "she had need of some crosses in this
world to remind her that there was a better to come behind it."

The first of these related to certain polemical skirmishes betwixt her
father and her husband, which, notwithstanding the mutual respect and
affection they entertained for each other, and their great love for
her--notwithstanding, also, their general agreement in strictness, and
even severity, of Presbyterian principle--often threatened unpleasant
weather between them. David Deans, as our readers must be aware, was
sufficiently opinionative and intractable, and having prevailed on
himself to become a member of a kirk-session under the Established
Church, he felt doubly obliged to evince that, in so doing, he had not
compromised any whit of his former professions, either in practice or
principle. Now Mr. Butler, doing all credit to his father-in-law's
motives, was frequently of opinion that it were better to drop out of
memory points of division and separation, and to act in the manner most
likely to attract and unite all parties who were serious in religion.
Moreover, he was not pleased, as a man and a scholar, to be always
dictated to by his unlettered father-in-law; and as a clergyman, he did
not think it fit to seem for ever under the thumb of an elder of his own
kirk-session. A proud but honest thought carried his opposition now and
then a little farther than it would otherwise have gone. "My brethren,"
he said, "will suppose I am flattering and conciliating the old man for
the sake of his succession, if I defer and give way to him on every
occasion; and, besides, there are many on which I neither can nor will
conscientiously yield to his notions. I cannot be persecuting old women
for witches, or ferreting out matter of scandal among the young ones,
which might otherwise have remained concealed."

From this difference of opinion it happened that, in many cases of
nicety, such as in owning certain defections, and failing to testify
against certain backslidings of the time, in not always severely tracing
for