Having accepted the invitation to come with the minister’s family to the wedding, we stopped and took tea at the manse with the Reverend Doctor and Mrs. Denholm,--the young ladies and their brother having joined the procession. For all our days we have been naturally of a most sedate turn of mind; and although then but in our twenty-third year, we preferred the temperate good humour of the Doctor’s conversation, and the householdry topics of his wife, to the boisterous blair of the bagpipes. As soon, however, as tea was over, with Mrs. Denholm dressed in her best, and the pastor in his newest suit, we proceeded towards Grippy. By this time the sun was set, but the speckless topaz of the western skies diffused a golden twilight, that tinged every object with a pleasing mellow softness. Like the wedding-ring of a bashful bride, the new moon just showed her silver rim, and the evening star was kindling her lamp, as we approached the foot of the avenue which led to the house, the windows of which sparkled with festivity; while from the barn the merry yelps of two delighted fiddles, and the good-humoured grumbling of a well-pleased bass, mingling with laughter and squeaks, and the thudding of bounding feet, made every pulse in our young blood circle as briskly as the dancers in their reeling. When we reached the door, the moment that the venerable minister made his appearance, the music stopped, and the dancing was suspended, by which we were enabled to survey the assembly for a few minutes, in its most composed and ceremonious form. At the upper end of the barn stood two arm-chairs, one of which, appropriated to the bridegroom, was empty; in the other sat the bride, panting from the vigorous efforts she had made in the reel that was interrupted by our entrance. The bridegroom himself was standing near a table close to the musicians, stirring a large punch-bowl, and filling from time to time the glasses. His father sat in a corner by himself, with his hands leaning on his staff, and his lips firmly drawn together, contemplating the scene before him with a sharp but thoughtful eye. Old Kilmarkeckle, with an ivory snuff-box, mounted with gold, in his hand, was sitting with Mr. Keelevin on the left hand of Claud, evidently explaining some remarkable property in the flavour of the snuff, to which the honest lawyer was paying the utmost attention, looking at the philosophical Laird, however, every now and then, with a countenance at once expressive of admiration, curiosity, and laughter. Leddy Grippy sat on the left of the bride, apparelled in a crimson satin gown, made for the occasion, with a stupendous fabric of gauze and catgut, adorned with vast convolutions of broad red ribbons for a head-dress, and a costly French shawl, primly pinned open, to show her embroidered stomacher. At her side sat the meek and beautiful Isabella, like a primrose within the shadow of a peony; and on Isabella’s left the aged Lady Plealands,