l sum raised to assist their mother, who
proved a very well-bred and respectable lady-like creature. When she got
better, she was persuaded to take up a school, which she kept for some
years, with credit to herself and benefit to the community, till she got
a legacy left her by a brother that died in India, the which, being some
thousands, caused her to remove into Edinburgh, for the better education
of her own children; and its seldom that legacies are so well bestowed,
for she never forgot Mrs Pawkie's kindness, and out of the fore-end of
her wealth she sent her a very handsome present. Divers matters of
elegance have come to us from her, year by year, since syne, and
regularly on the anniversary day of that sore Saturday, as the Saturday
following the meal mob was ever after called.

CHAPTER XIV--THE SECOND PROVOSTRY

I have had occasion to observe in the course of my experience, that there
is not a greater mollifier of the temper and nature of man than a
constant flowing in of success and prosperity. From the time that I had
been dean of guild, I was sensible of a considerable increase of my
worldly means and substance; and although Bailie M'Lucre played me a
soople trick at the election, by the inordinate sale and roup of his
potatoe-rig, the which tried me, as I do confess, and nettled me with
disappointment; yet things, in other respects, went so well with me that,
about the eighty-eight, I began to put forth my hand again into public
affairs, endowed both with more vigour and activity than it was in the
first period of my magisterial functions. Indeed, it may be here proper
for me to narrate, that my retiring into the background during the last
two or three years, was a thing, as I have said, done on mature
deliberation; partly, in order that the weight of my talents might be
rightly estimated; and partly, that men might, of their own reflections,
come to a proper understanding concerning them. I did not secede from
the council. Could I have done that with propriety, I would assuredly
not have scrupled to make the sacrifice; but I knew well that, if I was
to resign, it would not be easy afterwards to get myself again chosen in.
In a word, I was persuaded that I had, at times, carried things a little
too highly, and that I had the adversary of a rebellious feeling in the
minds and hearts of the corporation against me. However, what I did,
answered the end and purpose I had in view; folk began to wo