"An' you wanted him to be a minister, Janet."

"I was that blind--ance."

"We are blind creatures, Janet."

"Wi' _excepts_, ma'am; but they'll ne'er be found amang mithers."

This conversation took place one lovely Sabbath evening, and just at the
same time David was standing thoughtfully on Princes street, Edinburgh,
wondering to which church he had better turn his steps. For a sudden
crisis in the affairs of a bank in that city had brought him hurriedly
to Scotland, and he was not only a prudent man who considered public
opinion, but was also in a mood to conciliate that opinion so long as
the outward conditions were favorable. Whatever he might do in London,
in Scotland he always went to morning and evening service.

He was also one of those self-dependent men who dislike to ask questions
or advice from anyone. Though a comparative stranger he would not have
allowed himself to think that anyone could direct him better than he
could choose for himself. He looked up and down the street, and finally
followed a company which increased continually until they entered an old
church in the Canongate.

Its plain wooden pews and old-fashioned elevated pulpit rather pleased
than offended David, and the air of antiquity about the place
consecrated it in his eyes. Men like whatever reminds them of their
purest and best days, and David had been once in the old Relief Church
on the Doo Hill in Glasgow--just such a large, bare, solemn-looking