Ye are a man of spotless name, bred to God's ministry, and a' men say that ye will some day rise high in the kirk, though poverty keep ye doun e'en now.

Poverty is a bad back-friend, Reuben, and that ye ken ower weel; but ill-fame is a waur ane, and that is a truth ye sall never learn through my means." "What do you mean ?" said Butler, eagerly and impatiently; "or how do you connect your sister's guilt, if guilt there be, which, I trust in God, may yet be disproved, with our engagement ?--how can that affect you or me ?" "How can you ask me that, Mr.Butler?
Will this stain, d'ye think, ever be forgotten, as lang as our heads are abune the grund?
Will it not stick to us, and to our bairns, and to their very bairns' bairns?
To hae been the child of an honest man, might hae been saying something for me and mine; but to be the sister of a--O my God!"-- With this exclamation her resolution failed, and she burst into a passionate fit of tears.
The lover used every effort to induce her to compose herself, and at length succeeded; but she only resumed her composure to express herself with the same positiveness as before.

"No, Reuben, I'll bring disgrace hame to nae man's hearth; my ain distresses I can bear, and I maun bear, but there is nae occasion for buckling them on other folk's shouthers.

I will bear my load alone--the back is made for the burden." A lover is by charter wayward and suspicious; and Jeanie's readiness to renounce their engagement, under pretence of zeal for his peace of mind and respectability of character, seemed to poor Butler to form a portentous combination with the commission of the stranger he had met with that morning.

His voice faltered as he asked, "whether nothing but a sense of her sister's present distress occasioned her to talk in that manner ?" "And what else can do sae ?" she replied with simplicity.