In these cases, the breach between these two originals might have been immortal, but for the kind exertion and interposition of the Baronet's daughter, Miss Isabella Wardour, who, with a son, now absent upon foreign and military service, formed his whole surviving family.

She was well aware how necessary Mr.Oldbuck was to her father's amusement and comfort, and seldom failed to interpose with effect, when the office of a mediator between them was rendered necessary by the satirical shrewdness of the one, or the assumed superiority of the other.

Under Isabella's mild influence, the wrongs of Queen Mary were forgotten by her father, and Mr.Oldbuck forgave the blasphemy which reviled the memory of King William.

However, as she used in general to take her father's part playfully in these disputes, Oldbuck was wont to call Isabella his fair enemy, though in fact he made more account of her than any other of her sex, of whom, as we have seen, he, was no admirer.
There existed another connection betwixt these worthies, which had alternately a repelling and attractive influence upon their intimacy.
Sir Arthur always wished to borrow; Mr.Oldbuck was not always willing to lend.

Mr.Oldbuck, per contra, always wished to be repaid with regularity; Sir Arthur was not always, nor indeed often, prepared to gratify this reasonable desire; and, in accomplishing an arrangement between tendencies so opposite, little miffs would occasionally take place.