r that, in return
for my care, ye hae brought sorrow into the bosom o' my family, an'
instilled disobedience into the flesh o' my ain flesh. But though
ye hae cleaved--as it maun hae been inherent in your bluid--into the
principles o' the sons o' this warld, yet, as I ne'er found ye guilty
o' a falsehood, an' as I believe ye incapable o' are, tell me truly,
why is your countenance an' that o' Mary changed--and why are ye baith
troubled to look me straight in the face? Answer me--hae ye taught her
to forget that she is your sister?"

"Yes!" answered Philip; "and can it offend the man who saved me, who has
watched over me, and sheltered me from infancy till now, that I should
wish to be his son in more than in name?"

"It does offend me, Philip," said the Covenanter; "even unto death it
offends me! I hae consented that my dochter shall gie her hand to a
guid an' a godly man, who will look after her weelfare baith here and
hereafter. And ye kenned this--she kenned it, and she didna refuse; but
ye hae come like the son o' darkness, an' sawn tares amang the wheat."

"Father," said Philip, "if you will still allow me to call you by that
name--foundling though I am--unknown as I am--in what am I worse than
him to whom you would sacrifice your daughter's happiness?"

"Sacrifice her happiness!" interrupted the old man; "hoo daur ye speak
o' happiness, wha kens nae meanin' for the word but the vain pleasures
o' this sinfu' warld! Think ye that, as a faither, an' as ane that has
my offspring to answer for, that I daur sacrifice the eternal happiness
o' my bairn, for the gratification o' a temporary feelin' which ye
encourage the day and may extinguish the morn? Na, sir; they wha wad ken
what true happiness is, maun first learn to crucify human passions.
Mary," added he, sternly, turning to his daughter, "repeat the fifth
commandment."

She had been weeping before, and she now wept aloud.

"Repeat it!" replied her father yet more sternly.

"Honour thy father and thy mother," added she, sobbing as she spoke.

"See, then, bairn," replied her father, "that ye remember that
commandment in yer heart, as weel as on yer tongue. Remember, too, that
o' a' the commands, it's the only ane to which a promise is attached;
and, noo, mark what I say, an', as ye wadna disobey me, see, at yer
peril, that ye ne'er permit this young man to speak to ye again, save
only as a brither."

"Sir," said Philip, "we have grown up together like twin