right, do a little wrong"—that to save one whom I loved, I must have committed the sin of perjury, and said on my soul be the guilt; that if even to refuse a slight favour was painful, who could bear to say no! when on that no! hung a fellow-creature's life—that fellow-creature most tenderly beloved. But I was in error—that worst error which cloaks itself in a good intention, and would fain appear only an amiable weakness. Jeannie Deans could not have laid the sin of perjury upon her soul: she had been brought up with the fear of the Lord before her eyes—she could not—dared not—take his name in vain. Many a still and solemn Sabbath, by the lingering light of the sunset sky, or with the shadow of the lamp falling around his gray hairs, must she have heard her father read the tale of how Annanias, and Sapphira his wife, were struck dead with a lie upon their lips;—dared she go, and do likewise? To her the court of justice, with its solemnities, and the awful appeal of its oath, must have seemed like a mighty temple. It was impossible that she could call upon that Book, which from the earliest infancy had been the object of her deepest reverence, to witness to the untruth. Yet with what more than Roman fortitude she prepares herself for suffering, toil, danger—anything so that she may but save her young sister. With what perfect simplicity she perseveres even unto the end; the kindness
