honest man, whatever his position, to the daughter of a scoundrel,
even if he chanced to be a duke; but she would not have been content
with the most distinguished goodness by itself. Walking after Jesus,
she would have drawn to the side of Joanna rather than Martha or
Mary; and I fear she would have condescended--just a little--to Mary
Magdalen: repentance, however perfect, is far from enough to satisfy
the worldy squeamishness of not a few high-principled people who do
not know what repentance means.

Mrs. Macruadh was anxious to know that the girl was respectable, and
so far worthy of her son. The idea of such an inquiry would have
filled Mercy's parents with scornful merriment, as a thing ludicrous
indeed. People in THEIR position, who could do this and that, whose
name stood so high for this and that, who knew themselves well bred,
who had one relation an admiral, another a general, and a
marriage-connection with some of the oldest families in the
country--that one little better than a yeoman, a man who held the
plough with his own big hands, should enquire into THEIR social
standing! Was not Mr. Peregrine Palmer prepared to buy him up the
moment he required to sell! Was he not rich enough to purchase an
earl's daughter for his son, and an earl himself for his beautiful
Christina! The thing would have seemed too preposterous.

The answer of the vice-chancellor's lady burst, nevertheless, like a
bombshell in the cottage. It was to this effect:--The Palmers were
known, if not just in the best, yet in very good society; the sons
bore sign of a defective pedigree, but the one daughter out was,
thanks to her mother, fit to go anywhere. For her own part, wrote
the London correspondent, she could not help smelling the grains: in
Scotland a distiller, Mr. Peregrine Palmer had taken to brewing in