at there had never been a festivity so sanctified within the great
hall of Dalcastle. Then, after due thanks returned, they parted
rejoicing in spirit; which thanks, by the by, consisted wholly in
telling the Almighty what he was; and informing, with very particular
precision, what they were who addressed him; for Wringhim's whole
system of popular declamation consisted, it seems, in this--to denounce
all men and women to destruction, and then hold out hopes to his
adherents that they were the chosen few, included in the promises, and
who could never fall away. It would appear that this pharisaical
doctrine is a very delicious one, and the most grateful of all others
to the worst characters.

But the ways of heaven are altogether inscrutable, and soar as far
above and beyond the works and the comprehensions of man as the sun,
flaming in majesty, is above the tiny boy's evening rocket. It is the
controller of Nature alone that can bring light out of darkness, and
order out of confusion. Who is he that causeth the mole, from his
secret path of darkness, to throw up the gem, the gold, and the
precious ore? The same that from the mouths of babes and sucklings can
extract the perfection of praise, and who can make the most abject of
his creatures instrumental in bringing the most hidden truths to light.

Miss Logan had never lost the thought of her late master's prediction
that Heaven would bring to light the truth concerning the untimely
death of his son. She perceived that some strange conviction, too
horrible for expression, preyed on his mind from the moment that the
fatal news reached him to the last of his existence; and, in his last
ravings, he uttered some incoherent words about justification by faith
alone and absolute and eternal predestination having been the ruin of
his house. These, to be sure, were the words of superannuation, and of
the last and severest kind of it; but, for all that, they sunk deep
into Miss Logan's soul, and at last she began to think with herself:
"Is it possible the Wringhims, and the sophisticating wretch who is in
conjunction with them, the mother of my late beautiful and amiable
young master, can have effected his destruction? If so, I will spend my
days, and my little patrimony, in endeavours to rake up and expose the
unnatural deed."

In all her outgoings and incomings Mrs. Logan (as she was now styled)
never lost sight of this one object. Every new disappointment only
whetted her