and evening: the laird would neither pray morning nor evening.
He would not even sing psalms, and kneel beside her while she
performed the exercise; neither would he converse at all times,
and in all places, about the sacred mysteries of religion, although
his lady took occasion to contradict flatly every assertion that he
made, in order that she might spiritualize him by drawing him
into argument.

The laird kept his temper a long while, but at length his patience
wore out; he cut her short in all her futile attempts at
spiritualization, and mocked at her wire-drawn degrees of faith,
hope, and repentance. He also dared to doubt of the great
standard doctrine of absolute predestination, which put the crown
on the lady's Christian resentment. She declared her helpmate to
be a limb of Antichrist, and one with whom no regenerated
person could associate. She therefore bespoke a separate
establishment, and, before the expiry of the first six months, the
arrangements of the separation were amicably adjusted. The
upper, or third, story of the old mansion-house was awarded to
the lady for her residence. She had a separate door, a separate
stair, a separate garden, and walks that in no instance intersected
the laird's; so that one would have thought the separation
complete. They had each their own parties, selected from their
own sort of people; and, though the laird never once chafed
himself about the lady's companies, it was not long before she
began to intermeddle about some of his.

"Who is that fat bouncing dame that visits the laird so often, and
always by herself?" said she to her maid Martha one day.