enchantit person, for he has falling in with a party of the elect

here, as he says, and they have a kilfud yoking every Thursday at
the house of Mr. W-, where the Doctor has been, and was asked to

pray, and did it with great effec, which has made him so up in the
buckle, that he does nothing but go to Bible soceeyetis, and

mishonary meetings, and cherity sarmons, which cost a poor of money.
But what consarns me more than all is, that the temptations of this

vanity fair have turnt the head of Andrew, and he has bought two
horses, with an English man-servan', which you know is an eating

moth. But how he payt for them, and whar he is to keep them, is
past the compass of my understanding. In short, if the legacy does

not cast up soon, I see nothing left for us but to leave the world
as a legacy to you all, for my heart will be broken--and I often

wish that the cornel hadna made us his residees, but only given us a
clean scorn, like Miss Jenny Macbride, although it had been no more;

for, my dear Miss Mally, it does not doo for a woman of my time of
life to be taken out of her element, and, instead of looking after

her family with a thrifty eye, to be sitting dressed all day seeing
the money fleeing like sclate stanes. But what I have to tell is

worse than all this; we have been persuaded to take a furnisht
house, where we go on Monday; and we are to pay for it, for three

months, no less than a hundred and fifty pounds, which is more than
the half of the Doctor's whole stipend is, when the meal is twenty-

pence the peck; and we are to have three servan' lassies, besides
Andrew's man, and the coachman that we have hired altogether for

ourselves, having been persuaded to trist a new carriage of our own
by the Argents, which I trust the Argents will find money to pay

for; and masters are to come in to teach Rachel the fasionable
accomplishments, Mrs. Argent thinking she was rather old now to be

sent to a boarding-school. But what I am to get to do for so many
vorashous servants, is dreadful to think, there being no such thing

as a wheel within the four walls of London; and, if there was, the
Englishers no nothing about spinning. In short, Miss Mally, I am

driven dimentit, and I wish I could get the Doctor to come home with
me to our manse, and leave all to Andrew and Rachel, with kurators;

but, as I said, he's as mickle bye himself as onybody, and says that
his candle has been hidden under a bushel at Garnock more than

thirty years, which looks as if the poor man was fey; howsomever,
he's happy in his delooshon, for if he was afflictit with that

forethought and wisdom that I have, I know not what would be the
upshot of all this calamity. But we maun hope for the best; and,

happen what will, I am, dear Miss Mally, your sincere friend, JANET
PRINGLE.

Miss Mally sighed as she concluded, and said, "Riches do not always
bring happiness, and poor Mrs. Pringle would have been far better

looking after her cows and her butter, and keeping her lassies at
their wark, than with all this galravitching and grandeur." "Ah!"

added Mrs. Glibbans, "she's now a testifyer to the truth--she's now
a testifyer; happy it will be for her if she's enabled to make a

sanctified use of the dispensation."
CHAPTER VII--DISCOVERIES AND REBELLIONS

One evening as Mr. Snodgrass was taking a solitary walk towards
Irvine, for the purpose of calling on Miss Mally Glencairn, to

inquire what had been her latest accounts from their mutual friends
in London, and to read to her a letter, which he had received two

days before, from Mr. Andrew Pringle, he met, near Eglintoun Gates,
that pious woman, Mrs. Glibbans, coming to Garnock, brimful of some

most extraordinaryintelligence. The air was raw and humid, and the
ways were deep and foul; she was, however, protected without, and

tempered within, against the dangers of both. Over her venerable
satin mantle, lined with cat-skin, she wore a scarlet duffle Bath

cloak, with which she was wont to attend the tent sermons of the
Kilwinning and Dreghorn preachings in cold and inclement weather.

Her black silk petticoat was pinned up, that it might not receive
injury from the nimble paddling of her short steps in the mire; and

she carried her best shoes and stockings in a handkerchief to be
changed at the manse, and had fortified her feet for the road in

coarse worsted hose, and thick plain-soled leather shoes.
Mr. Snodgrass proposed to turn back with her, but she would not

permit him. "No, sir," said she, "what I am about you cannot meddle
in. You are here but a stranger--come to-day, and gane to-morrow;--

and it does not pertain to you to sift into the doings that have
been done before your time. Oh dear; but this is a sad thing--

nothing like it since the silencing of M'Auly of Greenock. What
will the worthy Doctor say when he hears tell o't? Had it fa'n out

with that neighering body, James Daff, I wouldna hae car't a snuff
of tobacco, but wi' Mr. Craig, a man so gifted wi' the power of the

Spirit, as I hae often had a delightful experience! Ay, ay, Mr.
Snodgrass, take heed lest ye fall; we maun all lay it to heart; but

I hope the trooper is still within the jurisdiction of church
censures. She shouldna be spairt. Nae doubt, the fault lies with

her, and it is that I am going to search; yea, as with a lighted
candle."

Mr. Snodgrass expressed his inability to understand to what Mrs.
Glibbans alluded, and a very long and interesting disclosure took

place, the substance of which may be gathered from the following
letter; the immediate and instigating cause of the lady's journey to

Garnock being the alarming intelligence which she had that day
received of Mr. Craig's servant-damsel Betty having, by the style

and title of Mrs. Craig, sent for Nanse Swaddle, the midwife, to
come to her in her own case, which seemed to Mrs. Glibbans nothing

short of a miracle, Betty having, the very Sunday before, helped the
kettle when she drank tea with Mr. Craig, and sat at the room door,

on a buffet-stool brought from the kitchen, while he performed
family worship, to the great solace and edification of his visitor.

LETTER XXI
The Rev. Z. Pringle, D.D., to Mr. Micklewham, Schoolmaster and

Session-Clerk, Garnock
Dear Sir--I have received your letter of the 24th, which has given

me a great surprise to hear, that Mr. Craig was married as far back
as Christmas, to his own servant lass Betty, and me to know nothing

of it, nor you neither, until it was time to be speaking to the
midwife. To be sure, Mr. Craig, who is an elder, and a very rigid

man, in his animadversions on the immoralities that come before the
session, must have had his own good reasons for keeping his marriage

so long a secret. Tell him, however, from me, that I wish both him
and Mrs. Craig much joy and felicity; but he should be milder for

the future on the thoughtlessness of youth and headstrong passions.
Not that I insinuate that there has been any occasion in the conduct

of such a godly man to cause a suspicion; but it's wonderful how he
was married in December, and I cannot say that I am altogether so

proud to hear it as I am at all times of the well-doing of my
people. Really the way that Mr. Daff has comported himself in this

matter is greatly to his credit; and I doubt if the thing had
happened with him, that Mr. Craig would have sifted with a sharp eye

how he came to be married in December, and without bridal and
banquet. For my part, I could not have thought it of Mr. Craig, but

it's done now, and the less we say about it the better; so I think
with Mr. Daff, that it must be looked over; but when I return, I

will speak both to the husband and wife, and not without letting
them have an inkling of what I think about their being married in

December, which was a great shame, even if there was no sin in it.
But I will say no more; for truly, Mr. Micklewham, the longer we

live in this world, and the farther we go, and the better we know
ourselves, the less reason have we to think slightingly of our

neighbours; but the more to convince our hearts and understandings,
that we are all prone to evil, and desperatelywicked. For where

does hypocrisy not abound? and I have had my own experience here,
that what a man is to the world, and to his own heart, is a very