the family was still further cemented by the union of a
representative of the male or worldly element with one of the
female and devout.

This essential difference remained unbridged, yet never diminished
the strength of their relation. My grandfather pursued his design
of advancing in the world with some measure of success; rose to
distinction in his calling, grew to be the familiar of members of
Parliament, judges of the Court of Session, and 'landed gentlemen';
learned a ready address, had a flow of interesting conversation,
and when he was referred to as 'a highly respectable bourgeois,'
resented the description. My grandmother remained to the end
devout and unambitious, occupied with her Bible, her children, and
her house; easily shocked, and associating largely with a clique of
godly parasites. I do not know if she called in the midwife
already referred to; but the principle on which that lady was
recommended, she accepted fully. The cook was a godly woman, the
butcher a Christian man, and the table suffered. The scene has
been often described to me of my grandfather sawing with darkened
countenance at some indissoluble joint--'Preserve me, my dear, what
kind of a reedy, stringy beast is this?'--of the joint removed, the
pudding substituted and uncovered; and of my grandmother's anxious
glance and hasty, deprecatory comment, 'Just mismanaged!' Yet with
the invincible obstinacy of soft natures, she would adhere to the
godly woman and the Christian man, or find others of the same
kidney to replace them. One of her confidants had once a narrow
escape; an unwieldy old woman, she had fallen from an outside stair
in a close of the Old Town; and my grandmother rejoiced to
communicate the providential circumstance that a baker had been
passing underneath with his bread upon his head. 'I would like to