The minister here broke in to prevent worse, 'As the tree falleth, dear lady, so shall it lie. Old Doctor Brown led a godly life, and it is not permitted to pry into the mysteries beyond the veil. He belonged to an earlier generation, and was so bound up in the work of his parish that I do not think he gave much thought to what was transpiring in the church at large. We may judge from the training he gave his son, that his heart was in the right place, and from the course his son has taken since he was brought face to face with the questions of the day, we may guess how the father would have acted if he had been similarly placed. Just see how young Roderick, though not yet ordained, has brought out the whole of his large parish with him. It is a great achievement! When do Mr. Sangster and the Session intend to moderate the call, and get him ordained and settled among you?' 'Well! to tell you the truth, Mr. Dowlas, I have been rather delaying and keeping back Mr. Sangster (so far as a wife may) from pressing that matter forward too precipitately. It seems to me that, with the young man's talents, it is like hiding gospel light under a bushel, to keep him in this poor neighbourhood. If he had only a chance now to preach in Edinburgh or Glasgow, or even Aberdeen, who knows but he might get a call to a city church? While if he is once ordained and settled here, he may be twenty years before he gets out of it. Between ourselves--you see, there has been a very considerable intimacy between him and our Sophia, for years and years back. I cannot say that anything has ever been said--I will not say that anything wants to be said--but a mother's heart, Mr. Dowlas, will ponder and be anxious. Before the Disruption, when there was every prospect of his becoming assistant and successor to his father, such an arrangement might have been feasible enough--not that it could be said to be much of a match for our daughter--but when there is true love and true religion, and a very good position in the county--for the Browns always visited with the best, and the money the uncle that died in India left them--. I fear I am a wee bit romantic, Mr. Dowlas, but I think if matters had arranged themselves in that way, and Sophia had wished, I could have given my consent. But the Disruption has changed all that! Still, with a city charge, and a nice congregation able to support a minister, like St. George's, Edinburgh, we will say,--perhaps we might have thought of it yet. But if he settled down here in Kilrundle, without either church or manse, it would be a clear tempting of Providence to entrust him with the happiness of our Sophia. I think of her that we have reared with such care, and given the most expensive education to!--potichomania, even, and the use of the globes!--to be living about among the cottars in Glen Effick. It would never do! The clay floors would bring on a galloping consumption in six month's time!'