Mr.Hugh Auld was altogether a different character.

He cared very little about religion, knew more of the world, and was more of the world, than his wife.

He set out, doubtless to be--as the world goes--a respectable man, and to get on by becoming a successful ship builder, in that city of ship building.

This was his ambition, and it fully occupied him.

I was, of course, of very little consequence to him, compared with what I was to good Mrs.Auld; and, when he smiled upon me, as he sometimes did, the smile was borrowed from his lovely wife, and, like all borrowed light, was transient, and vanished with the source whence it was derived.