o' this life."

"Why, Mither?"

"Because you are--the baity o' you--so weel satisfied wi' your present
mak' up. That's a'. And it is a' that is needfu' to keep you baith
from going forwarder. There's a lump a' rank cowardice in it, too."

"Mother, do you think I am a coward?"

"All women are frightened by what is said o' them, or even likely to
be said o' them. And nae wonder. Women are far harder judged than men
are. You would think the Ten Commands were not made for men. Yet if a
woman breaks one o' them, God's sake! what a sinner she is!"

"I don't see what you are meaning, Mither."

"It's plain enou'. Men are not set down below notice, if they break
the twa first a' their lives lang, if so be they pay their deficit to
God in gold to the kirk. How many men do you know, Christine, who
never break the third command? How many men honor the fourth? As to
the fifth, Scots are maistly ready to tak' care o' their ain folk.
The sixth, seventh and eighth belong to the criminal class, and ye'll
allow its maistly made up o' bad men. Concerning the ninth command,
men are warse than women, but men call their ill-natured talk
politics, or het'rodoxy, or some ither grand name; and I'll allow that
as soon as they begin to covet their neighbor's house and wife and
horses and cattle, they set to wark, and mak' money and build a bigger
house than he hes, and get a bonnier wife, and finer-blooded horses
and cattle--and I'm not saying whether they do well or ill--there is
sae much depending on the outcome o' prosperity o' that kind. But tak'
men as a whole, they leave the Ten Commands on the shoulders o' their
wives."

"And do the women obey them, Mither?"

"Middling well. They do love God, and they do go to kirk. They don't
swear, and as a general thing they honor their fathers and mothers.
They don't, as a rule, murder or steal or tak' some ither woman's
husband awa' from her. I'm no clear about women and the ninth and
tenth command. They are apt to long for whatever is good and
beautiful--and I don't blame them."

"I wish I was better educated, Mother. I would be able to decide
between Angus and Cluny."

"Not you. The key of your life is in your heart, not in your brain."

"It is a pity."

"That is, as may be. In the long run, your feelings will decide, and
they are likely to be mair sensible than your reasons. And where love
is the because o' your inquiry, I'll warrant a bit o' good sense is
best o' all advisers."