had often been in the suite of the earls of Douglas, and had been extremely active in plundering the English borders. They had three boars’ heads for their arms: from which it was inferred by themselves, that their forefathers had been intrepid and successful hunters; whereas the detractors of the family derived those emblems from the will and bequest of one of its maternal uncles, who, having been an eminent pork-butcher at Newcastle, in leaving his wealth to a nephew, proprietor of Etterick, then much involved, had chosen to annex to his legacy a condition referring to his own profession. To this last interpretation the lady would adhere. The laird would farther asseverate, that the family of Etterick had from many generations in its marriages kept to its own rank; and that if he had a little demeaned himself, he still thought Grizzle ought to be sensible of the promotion she had received, and duly to value the alliance to which she had been raised.--The lady’s first line of arguments by which she opposed so unwarrantable attacks on the dignity of the Sourkrouts consisted of the mayor and his importance, and corporation dinners and election balls, and the mayoress partner to the chief candidate my lord Ethelwald Mercia, son to Edgar earl of Pentweazle, the Countess of Coventry’s Minuet danced by the said lord and said mayoress. But if the first line by the force of his charge did not discomfit the boars’ heads and the Etterick antiquity, there was a strong line of reserve, commanded and with impetuous fury led on by Mrs. Sourkrout herself, consisting of her uncle the bishop. The laird of Etterick ought to remember, that the lady who had honoured him with her hand was great niece to a spiritual lord. Was any of his boars’ heads a right reverend father in God? could any of them shew a mitre on their carriage?--The laird, finding his opponents more voluble than himself, at last desisted from contesting the point; unless now and then when he returned from a conference with the parson over Maggy Wood’s whisky-punch, or from a meeting of justices held to promote good morals and especially sobriety among the poor, or from a Monday’s dinner after the administration of the sacrament.