mself that Blackie was much too
intent on some sweet blades of grass to give any trouble at that moment.

"Gowrie! that's the old farm down in the hollow there, isn't it? And how
long have you been herding?" asked Grace, who still stood on the
stepping-stones, and pursued the conversation with the noisy little
stream babbling round her.

"I was hired to Gowrie two year come Marti'mas, and afore that I herded
some sheep on the hill yonder. We had a hut all to oursels. I slept wi'
them a' night, and liked them terrible weel, a hantle better than the
cattle," and his eye wandered regretfully to a bleak mountain slope,
which had evidently pleasant associations for the little herd-boy.

"Did you ever go to school?" asked Grace, anxious to introduce her
subject, for she thought she would like this boy for a scholar.

"Ay, did I once, when I was a wee laddie. I was in the 'Third Primer,'
and could read pretty big words," and he fumbled in his jacket-pocket
for the collection of dog-eared leaves which represented his store of
learning.

"Of course you can't go to school now on week days, when you have to
watch the cows; but perhaps you go to Sunday-school?" Grace asked; and
will it make her desire to do good appear very narrow and small, if it
must be confessed that she hoped to hear that he did not go to any? Her
mind was soon set at rest, however, for he presently replied:

"The school at the kirk, ye mean? No; granny's dreadful deaf, and we
don't go to the kirk. I belong to Gowrie a' the week, but I'm granny's
on Sabbath; there's aye a deal to do, brakin' sticks and mendin' up
things, ye see."

"And you really don't go to a Sunday-school?" exclaimed Grace, hardly
able to restrain her satisfaction at this piece of information. "But,
by-the-by, I have never asked your name. I should like to hear it,
because I hope we are going to be friends."

"They call me Geordie Baxter," he replied, as he ran to check the
wanderings of one of the cows, while Grace stood watching him, as she
pondered how she might best frame an invitation asking him to be her
scholar. He seemed so manly and independent, though he was so young;
and, somehow, it was all so different from how she had planned her
finding of scholars. She had been looking for a cottage where the
tattered children might be crawling about the doorstep, making mudpies
and quarrelling with each other; and then she thought she would knock at
the door, after she had spoken to