When the father glanced up, there was the radiant boy in the pulpit looking as if he would like to jump down his throat.

If he hung his head the minister would ask, with a groan, whether he was unprepared; and the whole congregation would sigh out the response that Mr.Dishart had hit it.

When he replied audibly to the minister's uncomfortable questions, a pained look at his flippancy travelled from the pulpit all round the pews; and when he only bowed his head in answer, the minister paused sternly, and the congregation wondered what the man meant.

Little wonder that Davie Haggart took to drinking when his turn came for occupying that front pew.
If wee Eppie Whamond's birth had been deferred until the beginning of the week, or humility had shown more prominently among her mother's virtues, the kirk would have been saved a painful scandal, and Sandy Whamond might have retained his eldership.

Yet it was a foolish but wifely pride in her husband's official position that turned Bell Dundas's head--a wild ambition to beat all baptismal record.
Among the wives she was esteemed a poor body whose infant did not see the inside of the kirk within a fortnight of its birth.