106 



CHAPTER V. 



MARRIAGE CORRESPONDENCE DEATH OF DAUGHTER VIEWS 



ON BANKING. 



ON the 7th of January, 1837, Hugh Miller was mar- 

 ried to the lady whom he had so long and so ar- 

 dently loved. Mr Ross, his superior in the Bank and 

 attached personal friend, gave away the bride, and Mr 

 Stewart performed the ceremony. It was a day to make 

 Hugh's heart, calm as he was in all things, profoundly 

 calm as to his own achievements and successes, glow 

 with honourable pride and well-earned joy. He had 

 dared, while in his mason's apron, to aspire to the hand 

 of one who was by birth and breeding a lady. The 

 attractions of personal beauty, enhancing those of a 

 cultivated mind and graceful and animated manners, 

 had led him captive, and for the first and last time, 

 in all the intensity of meaning that can be thrown into 

 the word, he loved. This affection had been for him 

 an inspiration, turning the current of his existence into 

 a new channel and rippling its smooth surface with the 

 genial agitations of hope. He had waited five years, and 



