affectation of unconcern, a letter with the Edinburgh post-mark,
which had been brought with tenpence to pay, from Cairn Edward.
Manse Bell was a smallish, sharp-tongued woman of forty, with her
eyes very close together. She was renowned throughout the country
for her cooking and her temper, the approved excellence of the one
being supposed to make up for the difficult nature of the other.

The letter was from his father. It began with many inquiries as to
his progress in the special studies to which he had been devoting
himself. Then came many counsels as to avoiding all entanglements
with the erroneous views of Socinians, Erastians, and Pelagians In
conclusion, a day was suggested on which it would be convenient
for the presbytery of the Marrow kirk to meet in Edinburgh in
order to put Ralph through his trials for license. Then it was
that Ralph Peden felt a tingling sense of shame. Not only had he
to a great extent forgotten to prepare himself for his
examinations, which would be no great difficulty to a college
scholar of his standing, but unconsciously to himself his mind had
slackened its interest in his licensing. The Marrow kirk had
receded from him as the land falls back from a ship which puts out
to sea, swiftly and silently. He was conscious that he had paid
far more attention to his growing volume of poems than he had done
to his discourses for license; though indeed of late he had given
little attention to either.

He went up-stairs and looked vaguely at his books. He found that
it was only by an effort that he could at all think himself into
the old Ralph, who had shaken his head at Calvin under the broom-
bush by the Grannoch Water. Sharp penitence rode hard upon Ralph's
conscience. He sat down among his neglected books. From these he