his shoes and stockings, that, "whether the way was broad or
narrow, it was time that they were in their bed."

"Sure, Mr. Colwan, you won't go to bed to-night, at such an
important period of your life, without first saying prayers for
yourself and me."

When she said this, the laird had his head down almost to the
ground, loosing his shoe-buckle; but when he heard of prayers, on
such a night, he raised his face suddenly up, which was all over
as flushed and red as a rose, and answered:

"Prayers, Mistress! Lord help your crazed head, is this a night for
prayers?"

He had better have held his peace. There was such a torrent of
profound divinity poured out upon him that the laird became
ashamed, both of himself and his new-made spouse, and wist not
what to say: but the brandy helped him out.

"It strikes me, my dear, that religious devotion would be
somewhat out of place to-night," said he. "Allowing that it is ever
so beautiful, and ever so beneficial, were we to ride on the
rigging of it at all times, would we not be constantly making a
farce of it: It would be like reading the Bible and the jestbook,
verse about, and would render the life of man a medley of
absurdity and confusion."

But, against the cant of the bigot or the hypocrite, no reasoning
can aught avail. If you would argue until the end of life, the