a legend, or rather a source of legends, in the Parliament House. He
was described coming, rosy with much port, into the drawing-room,
walking direct up to the lady, and assailing her with pleasantries, to
which the embarrassed fair one responded, in what seemed a kind of
agony, "Eh, Mr. Weir!" or "O, Mr. Weir!" or "Keep me, Mr. Weir!" On the
very eve of their engagement, it was related that one had drawn near to
the tender couple, and had overheard the lady cry out, with the tones of
one who talked for the sake of talking, "Keep me, Mr. Weir, and what
became of him?" and the profound accents of the suitor reply, "Haangit,
mem, haangit." The motives upon either side were much debated. Mr.
Weir must have supposed his bride to be somehow suitable; perhaps he
belonged to that class of men who think a weak head the ornament of
women - an opinion invariably punished in this life. Her descent and
her estate were beyond question. Her wayfaring ancestors and her
litigious father had done well by Jean. There was ready money and there
were broad acres, ready to fall wholly to the husband, to lend dignity
to his descendants, and to himself a title, when he should be called
upon the Bench. On the side of Jean, there was perhaps some fascination
of curiosity as to this unknown male animal that approached her with the
roughness of a ploughman and the APLOMB of an advocate. Being so
trenchantly opposed to all she knew, loved, or understood, he may well
have seemed to her the extreme, if scarcely the ideal, of his sex. And
besides, he was an ill man to refuse. A little over forty at the period
of his marriage, he looked already older, and to the force of manhood
added the senatorial dignity of years; it was, perhaps, with an
unreverend awe, but he was awful. The Bench, the Bar, and the most
experienced and reluctant witness, bowed to his authority - and why not
Jeannie Rutherford?

The heresy about foolish women is always punished, I have said, and Lord