The Entail; or, The Lairds of Grippy
Perhaps, had he not, immediately after Walter's marriage, been occupied with the legal arrangement consequent to an accepted proposal from Milrookit of Dirdumwhamle, to make Miss Meg his third wife, this apprehension might have hardened into animosity, and been exasperated to aversion; but the cares and affairs of that business came, as it were, in aid of the father in his nature, and while they seemingly served to excuse his gradually abridged intercourse with Charles and Isabella, they prevented such an incurable induration of his heart from taking place towards them, as the feelings at work within him had an undoubted tendency to produce.